After 17 years, theMCUhas proven that its sprawling cosmic stories are better served by longer rather than shorter movies. AfterAvengers: Endgameclocked in over three hours in theaters, the topic of the MCU’s runtimes became a bone of contention among cinema goers. Avid fans like myself are more than happy to sit through three hours of high-octane and heart-rending swashbuckling narratives as long as they boast a certain level of quality. On the other hand, it is easy to see why more casual fans of the franchise might be perturbed by unprecedented run times.
Marvel then flipped the script in 2024 by releasingthe shortest MCU movieto date withThe Marvels. Unfortunately for the studio (and fans who saw this as a turning point for the franchise), this movie becamethe MCU’s biggest flop. While there are severalreasonsThe Marvelsfailed, I do think this unique feature of the movie speaks to a larger consideration for Marvel to mull over when it comes to cutting movies down, and past experience should give rise to an epiphany ahead of huge upcoming projects.
Most Of The MCU’s Most Popular Movies Are Longer
Every Avengers Movie Is In The Top Ten
The best movies in the MCUboast manysimilar qualities, but one of the more surprising is their longer run times.Avengers: Endgame, for instance, is the longest movie in the MCU and the genre as a whole, the four-hour yet unreleasedZack Snyder’s Justice Leaguenotwithstanding. It is alsothe MCU’s highest-grossing movie, bagging $2.7 billion for Marvel Studios, and one of its highest-rated. The correlation between popularity and length extends beyond this one example, however.
3 hours 1 minute
$2.7 billion
2 hours 41 minutes
$860 million
2 hours 36 minutes
$400 million
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
2 hours 29 minutes
$850 million
$2 billion
2 hours 28 minutes
$1.9 billion
2 hours 27 minutes
$1.2 billion
2 hours 23 minutes
$1.5 billion
2 hours 21 minutes
$1.4 billion
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
2 hours 17 minutes
$870 million
In fact, each ofthe MCU’s highest-grossing franchiseshas representatives on this list, including the Avengers, Black Panther, Spider-Man, and the Guardians of the Galaxy.The data shows that an extended period sitting in a cinema seat is not enough to turn audiences off seeing a genuinely compelling MCU movie, with worldwide fans eager to witness the full story. This speaks to the notion that telling stories that span several comic book issues in the space of a single movie deserves sufficient space to be told.
Interestingly,the opposite effect can be seen with the MCU’s three shortest movies. In order of length,The Marvels,The Incredible Hulk, andThor: The Dark Worldwere not the best-received MCU movies, while the shortest two are thelowest-grossing MCU movies. This tracks with some of the criticisms leveled at these movies pointing towards certain aspects being missing, such as references to the wider MCU inThe Incredible Hulk, or a failure to flesh out Asgard inThor: The Dark World.
Thor: The Dark Worldgrossed a respectable $640 million at the worldwide box office.
Captain America: Brave New Worldhas added to this trend. Clocking in at 1 hour 58 minutes,Captain America: Brave New Worldis the MCU’s joint-seventh-shortest movie alongsideAnt-Man and the Waspand has proved particularly divisive.Critics weren’t exactly won over by the latest MCU movie, and its running total at the global box office (at the time of writing) is $392 million, making it currently the MCU’s fifth-lowest-grossing movie. Still, longer run times don’t make MCU movies unassailable.
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Eternals Was A Shaky Start To A New Saga
There is a glaring outlier in the list of Marvel Studios' longest-running and widely acclaimed movies:2021’sEternals. In fact,Eternalsmarked a turning point for Marvel Studios' Multiverse Saga as the new cast of characters failed to inspire as much enthusiasm as previously lesser-known figures like the Guardians of the Galaxy.Eternalsis currently the MCU’s sixth-lowest-grossing movie, and remains one of the worst-rated movies in the MCU.
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While I thinkEternalsis criminally underrated, it shows how one of the main criticisms of the movie - the sheer number of characters it attempted to spotlight - wasn’t rectified by a longer run time. In fact,its length might have helped to contribute to criticisms, as its attempts to give enough screen time to each Eternal and deliver exposition on their millennia-spanning history felt like more of a slog. With that being said,Eternalswas a particularly ambitious project and an exception to an emerging rule that MCU movies generally need bigger run times to thrive.
The MCU Needs Longer Movies To Make Full Sense
Covering So Many Comics Needs Longer Run Times
One of the key challenges for Marvel Studios is effectively communicating the lore and details of larger-than-life characters who boast decades of comic book history in the space of just one movie. This is a fine line to tread, butshortening run times to make their cinematic outings more bite-size feels both needless and unwise. The clever use of time jumps inAvengers: Endgamedidn’t hamper the storytelling at all, and it still deserved every minute of its more than three hours of storytelling to effectively bring the Infinity Saga to a close.
It’s no wonder that each of the Avengers movies so far boasts the longest run times.
Despite missing the mark,Eternalstook the right approach early in the Multiverse Saga in its attempt to facilitate the breadth of its ensemble cast. It is particularly rare for an MCU movie to spotlight just one character these days, andThe Marvelshelped to prove that a short run time made it difficult to care about new characters like Monica Rambeauwhen she was essentially shoehorned into the mix with minimal character development inWandaVision. The same can be said for Kamala Khan when it comes to MCU moviegoers who skip out on watching Disney+ shows.
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It’s no wonder that each of the Avengers movies so far boasts the longest run times. Not only do they capably spotlight each of their main stars, but they take the time to secure the interconnectedness of the MCU inherent in their premises. The Multiverse Saga is suffering by failing to tie its composite parts together, andreleasing a movie with longer run times (asSpider-Man: No Way Homedemonstrated) is necessary to ensure it can capture the breadth of the wider MCU narrative.
Avengers: Doomsday & Avengers: Secret Wars Deserve Longer Runtimes
They Have A Lot To Cover
This is whyAvengers: DoomsdayandAvengers: Secret Warsneed run times to rival their predecessors. As aforementioned, a lack of clear throughline as typically telegraphed through Avengers movies hashampered the Multiverse Sagaand put substantial pressure on these two movies to pick up the slack at the tail-end of the saga.The need to makeAvengers: DoomsdayandAvengers: Secret Warsas long or even longer than the Avengers movies of the Infinity Sagais further strengthened by the wider context.
To put it mildly, theMCU’s Multiverse Saga is vast. A length nearing three hours feels necessary if Marvel hopes to acceptably spotlight the many, many characters it has introduced since the Infinity Saga. Unfortunately, this is no mean feat, asEternalshelped to prove that a longer run time isn’t all it takes to produce a popular movie that features a large ensemble cast.
