Avengers: Endgame Director Confirms Film's Run Time

Turns out that the Endgame and the long game are one and the same. 

Chatting with ComicBook.com, Avengers: Endgame co-director Joe Russo confirmed the official run time for the upcoming super-sized superhero flick. 

Though it was once reported to be clocking in at a staggering 3 hours and 2 minutes (according to a now-deleted page on ticket retailer AMC's website), Endgame won't last quite that long. As Russo revealed, "I think it's three hours and fifty-eight seconds." 

This clipped run time instantly and understandably raises a few questions: How exactly did Joe Russo and his directing-partner-slash-sibling Anthony Russo shave a full minute (plus some change) off Endgame? Did they make a last-minute mad dash to the editing room and re-cut a scene, or – gasp — remove some footage? What did those 62 seconds of Endgame goodness hold, and will we ever get to see them play out on screen? Have they been lost forever?

Cool your jets, dear reader — the Russos didn't rework Endgame in any major way to shorten the film. Russo explained that nothing about the actual movie was altered, and that he and his brother just "sped up the credits" to bring Endgame to its current run time. 

At 3 hours and 58 seconds long, Avengers: Endgame is officially the longest film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, far exceeding the run times of its direct predecessor Avengers: Infinity War (2 hours and 40 minutes) as well as the heftier franchise entries Captain America: Civil War (2 hours and 27 minutes), The Avengers (2 hours and 23 minutes), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2 hours and 21 minutes), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2 hours and 17 minutes), Black Panther (2 hours and 14 minutes), and Spider-Man: Homecoming (2 hours and 13 minutes). It's also the only MCU movie to reach and surpass the three-hour benchmark, sitting closer to massive films like The Wolf of Wall Street, Titanic, Schindler's List, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and The Godfather: Part II than it does to its franchise companions.

It isn't all that surprising that the final cut of Avengers: Endgame wound up coming in at over three hours considering that the Russos and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige time and again mentioned that run time. What is interesting to take into account is that no one (at least not the lucky people who attended pre-release screenings of Endgame) seems to mind that the film is so long and weren't fussed about the lack of intermission to use the restroom. Back in February, Anthony Russo shared with Collider, "We have screened the movie four times for audiences now. For the first three screenings, not a single person got up to go to the bathroom."

Obviously, the Russo brothers had a huge task ahead of them when they approached Avengers: Endgame, the culmination of 11 years of Marvel movies and 22 franchise installments that came before it. The pair took great care with the story and the direction, of course, but they also placed just as much emphasis on getting the run time just right, with the help of Feige. Prior to locking in Endgame's final run time, Feige told Collider, "We don't look at run times in terms of mandates or anything like that Every movie should feel like it's an hour and 45 minutes. Now, some movies can be 90 minutes and feel like they're four hours. And some movies can be three and a half hours and feel like 90 minutes ... And every version of Endgame thus far, and the ones that we're honing in on, feel very good."

Early reviews for Endgame are expected to hit the internet before too long, and we're sure critics will let everyone know whether the three-hour run time is over-the-top and bloated or perfect for a film of Endgame's epic proportions. 

Penned by screenwriting duo Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, Avengers: Endgame will open in theaters on April 26.