Fans are mere weeks away from sitting down in theaters and taking in the MCU's first new film of 2022. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is looming close on the horizon, after the multiple delays, a new director, and working through a worldwide pandemic. The Doctor Strange sequel will dive into the Multiverse as Benedict Cumberbatch's Stephen Strange is forced to break the very seams of reality in order to save it.
Despite being a little over a month away, the project is still shrouded in a thick fog of mystery. Audiences have been treated to two trailers for the film, getting glimpses at Strange's new reality-bending team of heroes, as well as a handful of the rumored Multiversal cameos planned for the sequel.
With such a grand reality-spanning plot planned for Multiverse of Madness, fans assumed that an equally gargantuan runtime would come along with it. A few weeks ago it was reported that the movie would clock in at 2 hours and 28 minutes, making it the fourth-longest MCU film on record.
Well, that does not seem to be the case, as the official runtime has been revealed.
Multiverse of Madness Runtime Revealed
Ahead of its May 6 release date, Fandango revealed the official runtime for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
The Strange-centric sequel comes in at 2 hours and 6 minutes, significantly shorter than the previously-rumored runtime for the Multiversal epic.
Here's the full list of MCU movie runtimes for comparison:
- Iron Man - 2 hours, 6 minutes
- The Incredible Hulk - 1 hour, 52 minutes
- Iron Man 2 - 2 hours, 4 minutes
- Thor - 1 hour, 55 minutes
- Captain America: The First Avenger - 2 hours, 4 minutes
- The Avengers - 2 hours, 23 minutes
- Iron Man 3 - 2 hours, 10 minutes
- Thor: The Dark World - 1 hour, 52 minutes
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier - 2 hours, 16 minutes
- Guardians of the Galaxy - 2 hours, 1 minute
- Avengers: Age of Ultron - 2 hours, 21 minutes
- Ant-Man - 1 hour, 57 minutes
- Captain America: Civil War - 2 hours, 27 minutes
- Doctor Strange - 1 hour, 55 minutes
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 - 2 hours, 16 minutes
- Spider-Man: Homecoming - 2 hours, 13 minutes
- Thor: Ragnarok - 2 hours, 10 minutes
- Black Panther - 2 hours, 14 minutes
- Avengers: Infinity War - 2 hours, 29 minutes
- Ant-Man & the Wasp - 1 hour, 58 minutes
- Captain Marvel - 2 hours, 3 minutes
- Avengers: Endgame - 3 hours, 1 minute
- Spider-Man: Far From Home - 2 hours, 9 minutes
- Black Widow - 2 hours, 14 minutes
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings - 2 hours, 12 minutes
- Eternals - 2 hours, 36 minutes
- Spider-Man: No Way Home - 2 hours, 28 minutes
Tickets go on sale on Wednesday, April 6, one month ahead of the film's release.
Quality vs Quantity
Just because Multiverse of Madness does not sport the megalithic runtime of some of its MCU brothers and sisters, does not mean it will be any lesser of a movie.
The only reason this is shocking is because of these past reports of it being nearly half an hour longer than it is. When those headlines started to break it made a lot of sense for fans. With the franchise coming off another Multiversal epic in Spider-Man: No Way Home, many assumed that this Doctor Strange sequel would clock in at a similar time.
Both movies tackle a similar reality-bending subject, so it would make sense for them to have very comparative runtimes. Just looking at the storytelling device that is the Marvel Multiverse, there has to be extra time taken so that the audience can understand the rules and consequences of said Multiverse. Just think about how much time was devoted to making sure audiences had internalized the rules of time travel in Avengers: Endgame.
Not to say the Multiverse of Madness team won't be able to do that with this run time. 2 hours and 6 minutes is still a lot of time. It will just have to be done at a quicker pace than what was initially thought.
It is interesting to note though, just where this length actually puts the film when compared to other MCU movies. This is the shortest Marvel Studios project since 2019's Captain Marvel, putting it around the same runtime as Spider-Man: Far from Home, Iron Man 2, and Guardians of the Galaxy.
Those are all films that pretty successfully tell a Marvel story in just over 2 hours, but none of them had the burden of doing it by way of the Multiverse.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness hits theaters worldwide on May 6.
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