Joss Whedon’s cut of Justice League may now be the shortest DCEU movie

It’s official. We’re living in some weird Twilight Zone version of 2017 where short is long and long is short. Unfortunately for the blushing gentlemen out there, I’m referring to comic book blockbuster running times. Just last week we heard that Thor: Ragnarok will actually be the longest out of all three of Marvel’s movies about the God of Thunder, despite the fact that director Taika Waititi initially had everybody believing that it would be the shortest MCU film to date.

Now comes our next running time plot twist courtesy of Justice League. We had previously been hearing rumours that the upcoming DC Comics superhero team-up film would be pushing close to the 170 minutes mark, 20 minutes longer than previous DCEU record-holder Batman v Superman. Despite its bladder bursting potential, this running time actually made sense: Director Zack Snyder’s extended cut of BvS was a huge improvement over the theatrical release, and with Justice League still needing to introduce the world to Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg alongside Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, it would need all the time it could get.

However, a new report has surfaced which has already been confirmed by various cinema chains in the US (via ComicBook.com) that claims that Justice League will in fact only be 121 minutes, the shortest DCEU film released thus far. In comparison, Suicide Squad clocked in at 123 minutes, Wonder Woman was 141 minutes, Man of Steel hit 143 minutes and BvS lumbered in at 153 minutes.

Now ever since Snyder unexpectedly exited as director of Justice League in the face of a terrible family tragedy, handing over the baton to Joss Whedon in the 11th hour, we’ve been hearing all about the lengthy reshoots the latter filmmaker had been doing. You would think that would mean more footage and not less, but apparently you would be wrong. There’s already been talk that Whedon changed the ending of the film by leaving one rather major villain on the cutting room floor to instead focus on establishing this film first before setting up the next one, and it could be that he was just as snip-happy with other aspects.

It has to be pointed out that after being their wunderkind for years, Whedon parted ways with Marvel on less than amicable terms specifically because of how they forced him to bloat up Avengers: Age of Ultron with all kinds of world-building beats. With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that on an arguably even bigger superhero team-up movie in which he’s been given a lot more filmmaking latitude, Whedon would in fact try to keep things more svelte. The problem though will be how to introduce all those elements mentioned above in a natural manner in an already busy movie – based on his superlative track record though, if anybody can pull this off it would be Whedon.

At least that’s what I’m fervently praying for and this isn’t another BvS situation where we need an additional 30 minutes of footage on a Blu-ray release just to make sense of the film’s plot. What do you guys think of this relatively short running time? Do you appreciate the brevity or do you think this could be trouble when you consider everything this movie is supposed to introduce? Whatever happens, at least we’re getting some really cool posters out of it.

 

Last Updated: October 24, 2017