‘Justice League’ Is Probably Not as Long as That Rumored Three-Hour Runtime
On Wednesday night, the tweets started flying out of CinemaCon, claiming that Justice League’s announced runtime was a luxurious two hours and 50 minutes long. Articles were posted, fans were by turns excited or outraged, and IMDb was updated. The thing is, none of these reports were confirmed and the movie’s not coming out until November. It’s not even close to done.
A little while later, after the takes had made the rounds, The Wrap published its own report, claiming that an unnamed insider with intimate knowledge of the film says there is no runtime, because they haven’t finished cutting it all together. IMDb’s page still has the 170-minute runtime listed, but they’re probably just waiting for some official confirmation either way, who knows.
What’s funny about this is how believable a runtime that long is at this point in the DC Snyderverse. The theatrical cut of Batman v. Superman was 2 hours and 31 minutes, and the extended R-rated Ultimate Edition weighed in at 2 minutes over 3 hours. The rumored Justice League runtime would fit neatly in the middle. Most of the tweets posted last night don’t feature any sort of disbelief, just a resigned, dull sense of fatigue. It’s entirely possible for this rumor to be true, or close to true, give or take a few minutes. But 2 hours and 50 minutes is nowhere near officially confirmed.
Who knows, a bloated runtime might be exactly what Justice League needs. I didn’t subject myself to the BvS Ultimate Edition, but I did hear from some critics that it at least served to flesh out the narrative a little bit, so that some transitions from plotline to plotline didn’t seem so rushed. And Justice League deals with six main protagonists (seven, counting Superman), and has to introduce us anew to three of them. Maybe it’s worth the extra minutes.
Justice League hits theaters November 17.