Ever since a three-hour runtime was rumoured for Avengers: Endgame, Marvel fans haven't been able to make up their mind about it.
Some have been calling for an intermission (there won't be), others think it's nowhere near long enough and others are acting like it's too long. The debate has continued for so long that it's come up frequently during the current press tour.
The original Avengers were even asked about it on Jimmy Kimmel Live and what the "best time to get up and go to the bathroom" was.
As much as Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige might think that people are too obsessed with runtimes, that hasn't stopped confirmation of Avengers: Endgame's three hour and 58 second runtime from being spoken about a lot.
But why is it such a big thing? After all, it's hardly the first blockbuster to cross the three-hour mark, even if we haven't had one for a while.
Avengers: Endgame doesn't come close to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King's huge three hour and 20 minute runtime, while the second-biggest movie of all time, Titanic, clocks in at three hours and 15 minutes.
Perhaps part of the discussion of the lengthy runtime is that there's not really much else to discuss at this point.
There's such a huge veil of secrecy over Avengers: Endgame that even the stars of the movie can't really talk about it. Sure, we can all speculate about what will happen (as we have done since the release of Infinity War) and each new piece of footage leads to numerous fan theories.
But if we're talking cold, hard facts, then the runtime is one of the few things that is certain about Avengers: Endgame, so perhaps that's why fans are clinging to it and making it such a discussion point.
The movie has a lot to fit in as it doesn't just have to resolve Infinity War's bleak cliffhanger, but also deliver a satisfying end to a 22-movie, 10-year arc of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
That can't be done in 90 minutes, so Avengers: Endgame was always going to be a long one and once the question of how long was solved, discussion inevitably moved onto why it was so long.
Superhero movies – and especially those in the MCU – have frequently crossed the two-hour mark in recent years, often edging closer to two-and-a-half hours. Infinity War, Captain America: Civil War and the first two Avengers movies can all put their hands up to this.
So an extra 30 minutes isn't that much longer.
Largely they've justified the epic runtime and Feige believes that Avengers: Endgame does as well. "What I've always said is a movie is as long as it should be. And we are not fans of overindulging movies. We are not fans of laborious lengths for no reason," he told io9.
"And if a movie doesn’t feel like that to us we continue to trim, we continue to shape, we continue to bring that time down. That happened to a certain extent on this movie. But we got to a point where it feels very exciting and goes by very quickly and in the end is the perfect length."
We'll soon find out if that is the case when Avengers: Endgame finally arrives in cinemas, and then the conversation can turn to whether it should have been three hours long.
Avengers: Endgame is released in UK cinemas on April 25 and US cinemas on April 26.
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Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
