Marvel StudiosIn its current, unfinished form, Avengers: Endgame is clocking in with a runtime of over three hours, making it the longest MCU film ever.
In a strange bit of humble bragging/weirdly clever marketing, directors Joe and Anthony Russo have claimed that, in the first three screenings of the film to test audiences, not a single person got up to use the bathroom.
Presumably, they’re suggesting that the film is so gripping people were literally unable to move from their seats out of fear of missing an important plot point. So much so, their brains completely shut off a number of bodily functions in order to maximise the attention they could give to what was happening on the screen, a bit like the idea that remaining senses become heightened when you lose one of them.
The first trailer for Avengers: Endgame dropped recently, you can watch it here:
Anthony Russo said, as per Comicbook:
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 wonder what snacks these test audiences were consuming…
Speaking about the epic length of the film, Anthony added:
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.
Currently, Avengers: Infinity War is the franchise’s longest film, at two hours and 40 minutes, while Thor: The Dark World is the MCU’s shortest instalment, clocking in at one hour and 52 minutes.
Since dropping another teaser for the highly-anticipated movie during the Super Bowl, it seems like we might be getting Avengers: Endgame sooner than expected, after Comscore Movies UK & Ireland reported that – for some audiences at least – the official release date is earlier than previously thought.
Can’t wait to see how Thanos’ snap is going to be unsnapped…
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.