Disney and Marvel have been holding test screenings for the movie, and in a recent interview with Collider, Joe and Anthony Russo talk a little bit about these test screenings and they also reveal that the current runtime of the movie is “at the three-hour mark.”
There’s still work to be done on the film, but the director note that Disney is fine with the movie being three hours long if it makes sense:
“I think the studio is down with what the best story is. 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.”
It’s excellent to hear that they’ve been happy with the responses from test audiences. It’s crazy to think that there are a select few people out in the world that know how everything comes to a conclusion with Avengers: Endgame! Anthony Russo added:
“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.”
I’m totally ok with the movie being three hours long! I’ll take as much as I can get with this film that is said to change the MCU forever.
Avengers: Endgame hits theaters on April 26th, 2019.
