The Russos finally weighed in on how long Avengers: Secret Wars should be, and their answer is both reassuring and slightly terrifying. Three hours. That’s the target runtime they’re floating for the Multiverse Saga’s grand finale, which puts it in the same neighborhood as Endgame but with significantly more characters to juggle. The question isn’t whether three hours is enough. The question is whether any runtime could possibly contain the amount of chaos Marvel is promising without the whole thing collapsing under its own weight.
Joe and Anthony Russo told Collider that Doomsday will clock in around two and a half hours, while Secret Wars gets the full three-hour treatment. This makes sense on paper. Doomsday is the setup film, the one where Doom establishes his dominance and breaks the multiverse into bite-sized pieces. Secret Wars is the payoff, the battle for reality itself, the movie where every variant and timeline and forgotten character gets their moment in the spotlight. You don’t rush that kind of spectacle. You let it breathe, even if that means audiences need to strategically time their bathroom breaks and avoid large sodas entirely.
But here’s the thing about three-hour blockbusters in 2026. Attention spans are shorter, streaming has trained everyone to pause whenever they want, and theaters are already struggling to keep butts in seats for anything that isn’t a cultural phenomenon. Asking audiences to commit to three hours of nonstop superhero action is a genuine gamble. Sure, Endgame pulled it off, but Endgame had the benefit of being the culmination of a decade of careful storytelling. Secret Wars is trying to do the same thing in half the time with twice the characters and approximately five times the multiversal confusion. The math doesn’t exactly work in its favor.
The casting announcements alone suggest this movie needs every minute it can get. We’re talking about the return of the original X-Men, multiple Spider-Men, the Fantastic Four, the current Avengers roster, the Thunderbolts, and whatever other surprises Marvel has hidden up its sleeve like a magician who refuses to stop pulling rabbits from hats. That’s not a movie. That’s a televised event with a budget that could fund a small nation. Giving Secret Wars three hours is less about indulgence and more about basic survival. Without that extra runtime, half these characters would get reduced to background extras waving politely during the final battle while the main heroes hog all the dialogue.
What the Russos seem to understand is that Secret Wars isn’t just another Avengers movie. It’s the conclusion of an entire saga, the narrative equivalent of trying to land a plane while also building it mid-flight and serving drinks to the passengers. Three hours gives them room for the big moments, the quiet character beats, and the inevitable scenes where someone explains what an incursion actually is for the confused audience members who skipped the Disney Plus shows. Secret Wars doesn’t need to be longer than Endgame. It needs to be exactly as long as it needs to be, and if that means three hours of multiversal madness, then so be it. Bring snacks. Lots of snacks.