In a surprise to pretty much no one,Avengers: Infinity Waris going to be a long movie. The thirdAvengersmovie has been described as the culmination of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe thus far, and indeed pretty much every MCU character is poised to show up in the film and itsuntitledAvengers 4sequel. With most of the filming onInfinity Warnow wrapped, co-directorJos Russorecently took the SDCC stage at Comic-Con and unveiledthe first jaw-dropping footageto a room full of fans.
Shortly after the reveal, Collider’s own Steve Weintraub caught up with Russo backstage to chat aboutInfinity Warand where they’re at in the process of making the movie. Russo revealed that the finalAvengers: Infinity Warrun time will very likely be at least two and a half hours:
“The current cut is over two and a half [hours]… Most of it’s a movie you could show, but there’s still a lot of work left to be done, I still have a couple of scenes that we haven’t finished fromAvengers 3that I’m shooting in the next few months with my brother, and it’s certainly gonna be a film that lives in the two and a half hour, two and a half hour-plus range.”
Russo went on to explain that given what’s involved inInfinity War, it almost has to be lengthy:
“We have to, I mean it’s a culmination event. We’ve gotta take 10 years of storytelling in this Marvel narrative experiment that’s been going on sinceIron Man, and we have to take all these disparate tones, disparate themes, motivations, and we have to pull them together in a unified narrative and write the final chapters of the book. There’s no way you could do that with all these characters in under that running length.”
The longest Marvel movie to date was also directed by the Russo Brothers,Captain America: Civil War, which clocked in at 2 hours and 27 minutes, and the other longest MCU movies areThe Avengersat 2 hours and 23 minutes andAvengers: Age of Ultronat 2 hours and 21 minutes. So yeah, ifInfinity Warclocks in at two and a half hours, it’ll be the longest MCU movie yet. But what aboutAvengers 4? Russo says it’s too early to say for sure, but expect a similar length:
“It’s hard to say because we haven’t shot it yet, but I think again because these are complex movies with a lot of characters, it’s hard to imagine—now look at me I’ll look like an idiot in a couple of months when it’s two hours and twenty minutes, but it’s hard to imagine these movies being short films.”
While Russo was tight-lipped as to whether the post-credits scenes forThor: Ragnarokwill tie intoInfinity War, he did speak fondly about the camaraderie amongst Marvel directors:
“I will say this though, it’s a blast hanging out withTaika[Waititi]. That guy’s awesome. He’s a crazy talented filmmaker and a very funny human being, and we were shooting very close to each other. I wish people could understand the sort of family atmosphere that we have, this filmmaker’s collective that’s going on at Marvel right now. Everybody’s so supportive of each other, we’re always dropping in to see each other, talk about what’s going on with characters, how things may be changing in stories. It’s amazing to be able to pass things back and forth with people that you really respect and love.”
Watch the full interview with Russo in the video above,click herefor all of our SDCC coverage thus far, and look for evenmorefrom our Marvel interviews on Collider soon.Avengers: Infinity Waropens in theaters on June 09, 2025.
