Only in the weird, wild, and wonderful world of the Marvel Cinematic Universe could a runtime of under two hours be interpreted as a harbinger of doom, but that’s exactly the boat The Marvels found itself in.
There’s already plenty of people out there who’d love nothing more than for the Captain Marvel sequel to fail, and it’s profitability is already in question due to some concerningly low box office projections. And yet, all it took was confirmation that Nia DaCosta had helmed the shortest feature in franchise history for the latest conspiracy theories to emerge.
Of course, it’s well worth noting that far too many superhero blockbusters run way longer than they need to, and a direct correlation between brevity and being terrible is hardly grounded in science. Nonetheless, the filmmaker explained her entirely justifiable reasons in an interview with Digital Spy.
“I really wanted it to be under two hours. I always think about the runtime actually, when I go into a film. I just feel like there’s no need to have it long if you don’t need to, because 1 hour 45 minutes is pretty average for a movie, so we were all really excited. I just think you do what’s right for the movie. I didn’t even know about this runtime thing until I think it was reported on. You have to do what’s right for the movie.”
There’s still plenty of heavy narrative and world-building lifting to be done in that time, though, but we’re edging ever closer to finding out if The Marvels has managed to pull it off.