The latest DC movie to come our way has finally struck cinemas like a bolt of magically powered lightning in the form of Shazam! Fury of the Gods. The follow-up to 2019’s Shazam!, which told the origins story of the aged-up superhero, the sequel sees Zachary Levi back in the spandex as Billy Batson, the teenager who becomes an adult with the powers of a god (or multiple gods, to be precise) whenever he says the magic word “Shazam!”
Shazam! 2 has been a long time coming, as its release date has shifted several times amid the franchise’s top-to-bottom overhaul over the past year or so, so fans will no doubt be desperate to check it out now that it’s at last out there in the world. That said, one thing you need to do before buying that ticket is check the movie’s runtime to make sure you can fit it into your day (we’re not all superheroes who have to save the world, but we’ve all got things to be doing, right?).
Here’s all you need to know about Fury of the Gods‘ length, then, as well as why it’s more significant than it at first appears.
What is Shazam! 2‘s runtime and why is it significant?
Shazam! Fury of the Gods has a runtime of two hours, 10 minutes (130 minutes). That makes it pretty par for the course for your average comic book movie. In comparison to the last two Marvel releases, for example, it’s far shorter than Black Panther: Wakanda Forever‘s super-sized two hours, 41 minutes, and just a shade longer than Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania‘s two hours, five minutes.
In fact, Shazam! 2 surprisingly bucks an extremely common superhero movie trend with its rather snappy runtime. Sequels in this genre are almost always longer than the one that came before, as upping the ante is part and parcel with how comic book franchises develop. That’s not the case with Shazam!, however, as Fury of the Gods is actually even shorter than its 2019 forebear. The first film was actually two hours, 12 minutes (132 minutes) in length.
In terms of the wider DC universe, Shazam! 2 naturally ranks as one of the smallest movies in the franchise, clocking in just a few minutes more than the likes of Suicide Squad (123 minutes), Joss Whedon’s Justice League (120 minutes), and Birds of Prey (a uniquely lean 109 minutes).
All in all, Shazam! Fury of the Gods won’t drain your day as much as certain other comic book releases in recent years, so even if your personal enjoyment of it aligns with the unfortunately underwhelming reviews, at least it’ll rattle along with something like the speed of Mercury.
