There has been a rumor going around about the runtime of the upcoming Justice League movie. some sources said it that it was about 180 minutes, some claimed that it was about 145 minutes. Well, recently the runtime was confirmed and now the movie is officially 121 minutes i.e. 2 hours and 1 minute. That means excluding the credits and everything, the movie will be only about 1 hour and 50 minutes long.
Now, according to what we have seen in the trailers and heard in the reports, there is a lot of stuff going on that has to be put into this movie. Now with this short span of time, it might be a tough ask to put all the stuff that we have been promised and make one great movie.
Our deepest fears might be coming true as this is going to be the shortest movie in the entire DCEU. Man of Steel was 143 minutes, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice was 151 minutes and Ultimate edition was 175 minutes, Suicide Squad was 123 minutes and the Extended Cut was 134 minutes, and Wonder Woman was 141 minutes. So now Justice League has beaten Suicide Squad as well.
This might turn out to be great as everyone is expecting that it might but the movie could run into great danger if this shortening of the Runtime does not turn out to be correct. Here are the reasons why it might be a bad idea to shorten this movie.
The Content
This movie has a lot riding on it as it will ensure the future of the DC Films shared universe. They have to put in an ancient story arc in the movie, assemble the League, give everyone an individual arc, give the villain some time, bring Superman back, bring in Green Lantern (maybe), and most importantly, make an incredibly awesome movie. The runtime might just turn out to be too short to show all this stuff in a justified manner.
Might turn out to be the next Batman V Superman
Dawn of Justice took a lot of heat with its theatrical cut and when the Ultimate edition came out, we found out that so much of stuff that was crucial to the story was cut out by the WB editing team and the theatrical cut seemed unnecessarily paced. If the same happens with Justice League movie the DC is surely in for a pounding. Everything looks great but the same feeling was there before Batman V Superman as well, but the theatrical cut almost ruined everything with a fast-tracked movie.
The Tale of Two Directors
As we have seen with the previous movies that Zack Snyder has directed and the Ultimate Edition of BVS, it is that Zack Snyder needs his time to tell his vision and a good story. Now with Snyder leaving after completing almost 70% of the movie, and Joss Whedon stepping in to finish it, it was totally expected that he would surely alter the vision a bit to his liking as well, which is why reshoots took place. But it seems that a lot of the movie that was shot has been cut to make it fit within 2 hours. Now Joss Whedon has directed both the Avengers movie which were around 140 minutes each. It could mean that he is great at making movies around 2 hours but this one is almost 20 minutes shorter and has more content to put in, so it might feel that the movie is again fast-tracked, just like BVS. It could also mean that the movie does turn out to be great as it is the product of the best director of DCEU and the best director of MCU, so let’s just hope for the best.
The reason why Justice League was always going to be around 2 hours and why Warner Bros. is so adamant about keeping it that way is that each and every theatre and screen has a limited number of screenings that it can do in a day, and making it 30 minutes shorter would ensure having one more screening in a day, which means more earnings. So, this is a strategy behind making the movie shorter. Let’s just be optimistic about this one and hope that everything turns out to be the best and this one does not face the same backlash as Dawn of Justice.
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