Image credit: Sony Pictures Releasing
The runtime for Spider-Man: Brand New Day has reportedly been revealed. If accurate, it breaks a three-year trend that was ruining the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies.
Over the last few years, the runtimes for Marvel Studios‘ theatrical output have hovered around the 2-hour mark. Outside Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which clocked in at 149 minutes, every other MCU movie released since 2023 has been roughly two hours long, with The Marvels setting the record for the shortest MCU movie ever at 105 minutes.
While I wouldn’t mind if more movies started coming in under the 2-hour mark, superhero blockbusters are the exception. While some movies like Thunderbolts* and The Fantastic Four: First Steps weren’t negatively impacted by 2-hour runtimes, there’s certainly a case to be made that Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, The Marvels, and Captain America: Brave New World could have benefited from more space to properly flesh out new villains and pay off storylines that were either introduced in another MCU show or in that movie.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day shouldn’t feel rushed or bloated
With Brand New Day marking the first time in five years that audiences have seen Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, the worst thing the long-awaited sequel could do is feel rushed.
Brand New Day is absolutely packed with new and returning characters, from the Punisher and Hulk to Tombstone, the Hand, Scorpion, and Jean Grey (if the rumors are to be believed). With a lot of characters vying for screentime, a runtime around two hours could make Brand New Day feel bloated.
Even The Amazing Spider-Man 2, with a runtime of 142 minutes, received criticism for having an unfocused narrative and an overabundance of characters. Many of these were added simply to tease a larger role in a future movie.
According to two different cinemas (via X), Brand New Day will have a runtime of around 150 minutes, making it the longest MCU movie since Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. James Gunn was able to wrap up his trilogy without the conclusion feeling either too rushed or overstuffed. At that runtime, Marvel and Sony could find similar results with Brand New Day.
Fans want to see how Holland’s Peter Parker has evolved into the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man since they last saw him. We don’t want to see the movie rush through the personal dilemmas of Spider-Man just to get to the next big action sequence.
At 150 minutes, Brand New Day can be allowed to breathe, making sure that its key storylines, like Peter’s “Spider-Puberty”, don’t feel rushed or underdeveloped. But also, after making fans wait five years for Spider-Man’s big screen return, we want to see as much of the fan-favorite superhero as possible, especially since his future in the MCU remains up in the air.
