Black Panther 2 Will Be Longer Than Almost Every Single Marvel Movie
Black Panther 2 will be longer than every Marvel movie except Avengers: Endgame.
This article is more than 2 years old
When Wakanda returns to the big screen, it will be the second-longest running Marvel Cinematic Universe movie to date. Black Panther 2: Wakanda Forever will have a runtime of two hours and 41 minutes, according to THR. This makes it one of the longest movies of 2022 as well as one of the longest superhero movies ever.
The running time of Black Panther 2 is influenced by a sweeping plot that carries the action to several places around the world and even under the sea. There is also screen time dedicated to the loss of T’Challa, the hero of the first movie, played by Chadwick Boseman. Boseman passed away in 2020 from colon cancer but continued acting until his passing, earning himself both an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe win for best actor for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.
Long movies may mean fewer screenings per theater but is definitely not a deal-breaker for audiences. The longest Marvel Cinematic Universe release to date is Avengers: Endgame, which ran for three hours and one minute, and brought in $2.79 billion at the box office to become the second-highest-grossing film of all time. Black Panther 2 is the latest in a host of movies – both with and without superheroes – that have exceeded the two-and-a-half-hour mark.
The pandemic has seen several major movies surpass this mark like Black Panther 2, including No Time to Die, West Side Story, The Eternals, and House of Gucci. Another film, The Last Duel, also edges just over the mark at two hours and 32 minutes. The pandemic also saw almost all movies released in streaming format rather than in theaters, so the number of potential showtimes wasn’t a consideration in the length of films as it usually is when theaters are fully operational.
However, long movies pre-date the pandemic. Avengers: Endgame was released in 2019, before the pandemic. Rival DC has two Batman movies that exceeded two and a half hours – Christopher Nolan’s 2011 entry The Dark Knight Rises and Matt Reeves’s The Batman, released this year.
The Batman is four minutes short of three hours but still raked in $770.8 million in box office sales. This is despite the theater industry still recovering from the economic effects of social distancing and closures over the past two years due to the pandemic. Audiences certainly don’t seem to mind long movies.
Even the two major movies to stand out from this trend have runtimes that almost reach the mark that Black Panther 2 surpassed. Top Gun: Maverick is two hours and 11 minutes long. Spider-Man: No Way Home is even closer at two hours and 28 minutes, and still grossed $1.9 billion globally.
The first Black Panther movie was historic and immensely popular, and the circumstances surrounding its casting are likely to bring many fans into the theater in tribute to Chadwick Boseman when the movie opens on November 11. Many of these same fans enjoyed the other longer movies and are not likely to be daunted by the long runtime of Black Panther 2. In fact, a quality follow-up to Black Panther could leave audiences wishing they really could be in Wakanda, forever.
