Brad Pitt's next action movie will have a runtime even longer than the super-sized Avengers: Infinity War. Pitt will next star in Top Gun: Maverick filmmaker Joseph Kosinski's Formula One epic F1, taking on the movie's leading role, Sonny Hayes, a retired F1 driver forced back into the cockpit to reclaim his former glory in one of the most dangerous sports on earth.
Mere weeks before its official release, the F1 runtime has seemingly been unveiled, coming in longer than some big-name action movies of the last half-decade or so. The Brad Pitt-led rubber-to-the-road underdog story has been marketed as one of the biggest movies (from a production standpoint) in recent memory, but fans had no idea its scale would be translated to its length.
According to motorsports insider Adam Stern, Brad Pitt's F1 will cross the finish line at 2 hours and 35 minutes (155 minutes) when it hits theaters later this month.
This marks the longest action movie of Pitt's recent career, beating out everything from 2019's space-faring odyssey Ad Astra to the David Leitch-directed spectacle Bullet Train.
In fact, it is so long that it even beats out the much-loved (and modern standard-setter for lengthy action films) Avengers: Infinity Wars, which only clocked in at 149 minutes.
F1 also sets a new mark for director Joseph Kosinski, breaking the record for the longest movie of the Top Gun: Maverick director's decade-and-a-half-long career.
See below for a list of recent Brad Pitt action movies for comparison:
- Ad Astra: 2 hours, 4 minutes
- Bullet Train: 2 hours, 6 minutes
- IF: 1 hour, 48 minutes
- Wolfs: 2 hours, 33 minutes
F1 races into theaters on Friday, June 27, bringing to life an unprecedented look behind the super-speed mega-sport for the first time on the big screen. Brad Pitt stars in the new sports racing epic alongside other A-list talents like Kerry Condon and Javier Bardem, as well as real-life Formula One drivers, including Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen.
Why F1 Needs To Be the Longest Movie of the Summer?
Some fans may look at the extended runtime for Brad Pitt's F1 and scoff; however, for others, it will be the best news they could hear about the film.
The new movie has a lot to do with its pedal-to-the-metal plot. It not only needs to introduce audiences to the ups and downs of the high-stakes world of Formula One racing but also the weaving narrative of Pitt's Sonny Hayes, a driver whose time has gone by getting back behind the wheel.
For all intents and purposes, this is an epic that just happens to take place on the race tracks of Monaco, Azerbaijan, and beyond. Thus, it deserves a runtime to fit that big of a story.
Part of that epic tale—like director Joseph Kosinski's last (similarly long) movie, Top Gun: Maverick—will be sweeping action sequences that use the real hardware seen in the film.
That means instead of putting Brad Pitt into a Formula One car with the help of some computer-generated visual effects, the F1 team used real cars at real Formula One tracks to capture the action of the film.
Not to say CGI action scenes do not deserve or warrant the kind of runtime F1 seems to be carrying, but, as has been evidenced by the Top Gun and Mission: Impossible franchises, studios are seemingly more willing to let action scenes breathe when they have been done practical to allow the audience a moment to invest in the real-world stakes other the moment.
Who is to say this lengthy runtime will actually factor into the quality of the movie? But it will at least allow for the best parts of F1, which are assumed to be its action-packed race sequences featuring these real-life rockets of the road, ample time to wow moviegoers.
Read more about F1 director Joseph Kosinski's upcoming movies here.
