Directors Joe & Anthony Russo have said that their upcoming film, Avengers: Endgame has been test screened multiple times, and that it still stands at approximately three hours long. For comparison, Avengers: Infinity War clocked in at 149 minutes (approximately two-and-a-half hours, including credits, which everyone stays back for).

Joe Russo told Collider in a recent interview that they are “still at the three-hour mark.” He didn’t go into any further details if the film could be cut down in the weeks leading up to release. He said that the studio is pleased with how the film is turning out and that they’ve heard positive things from test audiences.

“I think the studio is down with what the best story is,” he said. “Right now, we think the movie is playing well and we’ve had great responses from our test audiences and we’re feeling very good about where it is. We’re still doing work to it. We’re not done with it. Again, this is a culmination film of 22 movies, it’s a lot of storytelling to work into it. Emotion is an intrinsic part of that to us. When you have to tell a really complicated story and you want strong emotional moments with the characters, it just requires a certain amount of real estate. This one, in particular, feels like three hours worth of real estate.”

Anthony Russo had a fun observation from the screenings. “We have screened the movie four times for audiences now,” he said. “For the first three screenings, not a single person got up to go to the bathroom.”

This isn’t the first time the Russos have spoken about the film’s long running time. In November, Joe in an Instagram live video said, “The running time on Avengers 4 is currently sitting right at three hours.” He admitted that he didn’t know if the final film would be this long. “We’ll see if that holds, but it’s sitting right at three hours right now,” he added.

“There’s a high probability that this movie will clock in at around three hours,” Joe had told Empire Magazine in December. “It’s a big movie with a lot of story.”

Avengers: Endgame is the hotly anticipated fourth film in the Avengers series, and the 22nd in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film will pick up after the events of Avengers: Infinity War, which ended with half the universe’s population being wiped out by the villainous Thanos. The film’s latest trailer, released during the Super Bowl, showed the survivors picking up the pieces, and preparing for a war. Endgame has been scheduled for an April release.

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First Published: Feb 06, 2019 18:25 IST