Thor 4's runtime is surprisingly shorter than you think

The official runtime for Thor: Love and Thunder has been revealed – and it won't be as long as you may have expected.

According to its page listing on the AMC and Cineworld websites (as first reported by The Direct), the upcoming Marvel movie will clock in at one hour 59 minutes. That makes it the shortest film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) since Ant-Man and the Wasp, which landed in theaters in July 2018.

Not only that, but Thor: Love and Thunder is also the shortest entry in Phase 4 of the MCU. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness had held that record, with Marvel's most recent film running for two hours and six minutes. However, Thor 4 will take that title off Doctor Strange 2 when it arrives in early July, meaning that the Sorcerer Supreme's latest solo outing only held that mantle for two months.

With Thor: Love and Thunder tickets officially going on sale today (Monday, June 13), it makes sense that AMC and Cineworld would reveal the superhero movie's runtime. Sure, the vast majority of MCU fans won't really care about the length of a film that they're really interested in seeing – they'll just be happy to know another one is on the way. Even so, it seems that both websites' runtime listings are genuine, what with tickets officially going on sale to the general public imminently.

Thor star Chris Hemsworth had previously teased that Love and Thunder would clock in at less than two hours. Taking to his personal Instagram account to post the film's official trailer on May 30, Hemsworth said that the film's cast and crew would "be giving you a full two hours of this beautiful madness" when the movie arrives. That put fan expectations in perspective over Thor 4's runtime, with Australian theatre chain Event Cinemas previously suggesting that the movie would run for two hours 15 minutes (thanks to Reddit for the assist).

Thor: Love and Thunder will launch in theaters on July 8 in the US and most international territories. The movie will arrive one day earlier in the UK, though, on July 7.

Analysis: are shorter Marvel movies here to stay?

It's an interesting question to ponder. Since Eternals was released in November 2021, subsequent Marvel movies have received shorter runtimes than each of their predecessors.

Spider-Man: No Way Home clocked in at two hours 28 minutes – eight minutes shorter than Eternals' runtime. As mentioned above, Doctor Strange 2 ran for two hours and six minutes (22 minutes shorter than No Way Home), while Thor will shave a further seven minutes off Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness' theatrical length.

Before Eternals landed in theaters, MCU Phase 4 films were already looking to subtract minutes from their runtime. Black Widow clocked in at two hours 14 minutes, while Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was done and dusted after two hours 12 minutes. Both films were 45 to 50 minutes shorter than the behemoth that is Avengers: Endgame with its three hour runtime. Both, though, were a tiny bit longer than Spider-Man: Far From Home's two-hour-and-nine-minute runtime.

On the surface, then, it appears that Marvel Studios is looking to rein in its cinematic offerings. Well, from a time perspective, anyway. Unless an upcoming MCU flick is one based around superheroes teaming up – like The Avengers or the rumored Thunderbolts movie – there's no need for Marvel films to exceed two hours. That's especially true for characters receiving a sequel or two, such as Thor, Doctor Strange, or Spider-Man. The origin stories of these superheroes are well established by now; they don't need subsequent entries in their MCU journey to be lengthy affairs.

Sure, new characters – Shang-Chi and Eternals, for instance – may need films with longer runtimes to properly introduce them to audiences. So it'll be interesting to see if Marvel's upcoming Blade and Fantastic Four movie reboots have runtimes that eclipse the two hour mark. However, with the majority of the studio's forthcoming films, including Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, being sequels, none of them realistically need to clock in at over two hours. We'll have to see if this is the case when those flicks duly launch.