Avengers: Doomsday will be shorter than Endgame, Anthony Russo says
Avengers: Doomsday co-director Anthony Russo has shared a fresh update on the film’s runtime — and it might not be the length you’re expecting.
Let’s cut to the chase: Avengers: Doomsday is heading our way in December, and everyone’s dying to know if it’ll be another bum-numbing marathon like Endgame or something a bit less epic on the bladder. There’s been loads of rumour and number-flinging about how long Marvel’s next big team-up is actually going to be—some of it from official sources, plenty from over-caffeinated Reddit sleuths. At last, we’ve had something a little more concrete from the mouth of Anthony Russo himself.
Anthony Russo told Fandango the film is 'a two-and-a-half-hour movie.'
If you’re counting, that’s about 150 minutes. For context, Infinity War clocked in at 149 minutes, while Endgame sprawled to a whopping 181—so, for now, Doomsday looks to be parking itself somewhere between those two. Rotten Tomatoes is, as of this week, showing a slightly longer not-quite-confirmed runtime of two hours and 45 minutes. Even so, it’s clear from Russo’s comments they’re trying to keep things tighter than perhaps some were anticipating (and, frankly, I’m not complaining).
Avengers: Doomsday’s current runtime sits at about 150 minutes, placing it close to Infinity War but quite a bit shorter than Endgame.
Worth pointing out: nothing is set in stone yet. There have been whispers about a 165-minute cut floating around in test screenings and backroom chatter from early marketing, but that might just be variants rather than the final version fans will be queueing for on opening night. At this late stage, though, Russo’s estimation probably isn’t far off the finished article.
Read more: Even Alan Cumming does not understand the plot of Avengers: Doomsday, and he is in it
Why not another super-sized epic?
So why isn’t Doomsday another record-breaker for length, considering the cast list is approximately the population of a small UK city? Here’s how Anthony Russo rationalised it—he said that however many superheroes you’ve got in the toy box, you’ve got to keep your eye on the story, not just pack the screen from wall to wall. In his words to Fandango:
'It’s like at the end of the day you’re telling a focused story. You know, it’s a two-and-a-half hour movie or so, and you’re sitting through it, and it’s a focused propulsive narrative that has like an organizing principle at its center, and everything has to orbit around that.'
He also got into the creative headache of keeping all those caped (and non-caped) characters orbiting around something that actually makes sense rather than just colliding into a soupy mess. According to Russo, he and co-director Joe aren’t about to let the plot wander off just because there’s a cast list stretching onto two pages—if anything, they’re doubling down on building proper character moments out of all that chaos.
Mark your calendar
- Avengers: Doomsday is set for release on 18 December 2026
There you have it: not the cinema marathon some may have expected, but still plenty of room for costumed mayhem.