Marvel movies can be a rather large time commitment. First of all, there are a lot of them. And they’re so interconnected that it can be hard to miss one or two (and still feel like you’re getting the full experience on the next offering). Then, there are the individual movies themselves. We have become accustomed to the movies in this franchise running well over two hours, sometimes into 2.5 or 3 hours. And look, there are some MCU films where you need that kind of time to do justice to the multiple complex stories and characters. Other times, they could maybe use a tad more editing.
Here are the runtimes of a few recent MCU flicks:
- Spider-Man: No Way Home 148 minutes
- Eternals 156 minutes
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings 132 minutes
- Black Widow 134 minutes
- Avengers: Endgame 181 minutes (woof)
And while we love getting to spend time in the MCU—we don’t necessarily want to walk into the theater a young person and leave, years later, old and withered. If we wanted that, we would have gone to a beach in an M. Night Shyamalan joint.
That said—exactly how long is the latest epic Marvel crossover expecting us to keep our butts in seats?
‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ runtime
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is 126 minutes long, making it slightly over two hours. That’s not terrible, right? As far as tentpole blockbusters these days go, that’s practically a short film. Sure, we can never get enough of Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff and don’t know who will show up in director Sam Raimi’s film, but the Doctor Strange 2 runtime is probably a good thing.
Perhaps this means it will actually tell a contained story that’s easy to follow—not that Marvel movies are particularly overcomplicated…with the maybe exception of Avengers: Infinity War and its six subplots. However, there have been so many rumors about how many Marvel characters and universes are going to be in this movie that it would not have been surprising if it clocked in at over three hours long. This gives us some hope that The Multiverse of Madness will not be a multiverse of mess.
It also means that we have not passed a point of no return as far as runtimes are concerned. Just because one movie is 150 minutes long, doesn’t mean they all have to be from here on out. Besides, there are always DVD extras and deleted scenes to pore over later. People do still buy DVDs for the extras and deleted scenes, right?! That gives us something to look forward to even after the film is finally released.
(featured image: Marvel/Disney)
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