If your movie is crammed to the brim with popular franchise characters, it’s going to be a long one – and in that respect, it is unsurprising to hear that cinema listings have begun to appear, suggesting that the runtime of Captain America: Civil War will be 2 hours and 26 minutes. This information has not been officially confirmed, but if these listings are accurate, this runtime would make the film a Marvel record-breaker before it even gets near a cinema screen.
Stacked against its franchise predecessors, a 146 minute-long Captain America: Civil War would be the longest instalment of Steve Rogers’ story yet, with Captain America: The First Avenger clocking in at 2 hours and 4 minutes, while Captain America: The Winter Soldier was delivered at 2 hours and 16 minutes. Indeed, as speculation has suggested, Captain America: Civil War would seem to be more in line with the Avengers movies – the first of which was 2 hours and 23 minutes long, and the second, 2 hours and 21 minutes.
A look beyond the realm of the Marvel Cinematic Universe reveals a frequent correlation between the number of characters involved in a superhero movie, and its runtime. Deadpool, for example, was a relatively small film in terms of the number of superheroes needing screen time, and so runs for just 1 hour and 48 minutes. X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days Of Future Past, on the other hand, both run for 2 hours and 12 minutes. It remains to be seen what the runtime of X-Men: Apocalypse will ultimately be.
But then, there is the fledgling DCEU, which seems to love a long movie, regardless. Man Of Steel, having just Superman to focus on, runs for 2 hours and 23 minutes – just three minutes less than Captain America: Civil War, which features everyone from Iron Man and Spider-Man, to Black Widow, Hawkeye and Black Panther. Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice, with its confirmed 2 hour and 31 minute run-time is still no match for Zack Snyder’s non-DCEU DC movie, Watchmen – which clocked in at a whopping 2 hours 42 minutes – but Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice has the added benefit of the cinematic introduction of Wonder Woman – which is worth a few extra minutes of anybody’s time.
