A small but not insignificant bit of information on the British Board of Film Classification website has some people wondering if the United Kingdom may be getting a little bit extra than American moviegoers got out of their moviegoing experience with Eternals last year.
The BBFC lists the film with a runtime of 174 minutes, a seventeen-minute discrepancy between the cinematic runtime of 157 minutes audiences have seen so far. Some users are taking this to mean that an extended version is at least a possibility. But, of course, others are taking it as a hands-down certainty with the internet still continuing to be the internet.
We can only say with any reasonable certainty that there is definitely extra footage out there. In December, Collider revealed that the Eternals home releases would indeed contain four scenes left on the cutting room for the theatrical release, including conversations between Phastos and his son, Sprite and Makkari, and Gilgamesh and Kingo, and a scene between Dane Whitman and Sprite.
Despite knowing all this, no one has any answers when it comes to how they might use the additional footage. Will it be tacked onto the end as an extra? Or is it going to be spliced seamlessly into the existing footage to make the release, which is slated for April, a true “extended” addition instead of the regular theatrical release with some tacked-on extras?
And of course, there is the extremely unlikely, if exciting, prospect that the extra time will be given over to entirely unknown to the public before now footage. Unfortunately, only time will tell. For the time being, fans can look forward to the film’s streaming debut on Disney Plus later this month.
Eternals will debut on Disney Plus on Jan. 12.
