Fans of Sony’s Miles Morales-led franchise are getting the anime treatment with the upcoming Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the sequel to 2018’s Oscar-winning Into the Spider-Verse. No, we’re not talking about the style of animation, we’re talking about runtime.
Across the Spider-Verse is 140 minutes long, according to the film’s listing on AMC Theatres and IMDb – almost half an hour longer from its predecessor. Animated films of this length are rare, and most commonly found in the archives of Japanese animation studios like Studio Ghibli and Kyoto Animation.
The only U.S. animated productions that can rival Miles’ second adventure are 1978’s The Lord of the Rings at 133 minutes, and the more underground 2012 title Consuming Spirits, which bows out at 136 minutes and was previously the longest animated film in the West.
Most films over 140 minutes long come from the land of the rising sun, like 2021’s Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time, 2010’s The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, and the 2019 extended cut of In This Corner of the World at a whopping 168 minutes.
The running time for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse isn’t surprising, however, considering the insanity of its production’s numbers. A thousand people worked on the film, animating 240 characters across six universes, which will each have their individual animation style. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, co-writers and co-producers on the film, called it “the largest crew of an animated movie ever” at the 2022 CinemaCon.
Across the Spider-Verse is all about setting records, and the film would have been even longer if the producers hadn’t decided to split it into two parts, with its continuation, titled Beyond the Spider-Verse coming in March 2024. For now, though, audiences will have to get really comfortable in their seats when Across the Spider-Verse comes slinging into theaters June 2, 2023.
