‘Blade Runner 2049’ is Rumored to Be the Longest Blockbuster Since ‘Interstellar’
Zack Sharf
Denis Villeneuve’s “Blade Runner 2049” is easily one of the most anticipated releases of the fall movie season, and it looks like everyone deciding to see the movie on the big screen is going to want to make themselves very, very comfortable in their seats.
The sequel is skipping festival season but has begun screening and sources say it runs well over the two-and-a-half hour mark. The exact runtime has not been confirmed by Warner Brothers yet, but Sony Russia has listed the movie at 163 minutes, which means we’d be getting 2 hours and 43 minutes of jaw-dropping Roger Deakins cinematographer.
#BladeRunner2049 is apparently 163 mins long (TBC runtime from Sony Russia, via DCP distribution service Kinoplan & https://t.co/GlhBo7IpNt) pic.twitter.com/4Rxp2TzW3R
— Anton Volkov (@antovolk) August 29, 2017
The average runtime for studio blockbusters has been way past the two-hour mark for some time now, but 163 minutes is still a wallop of a runtime even for a major release. The last studio blockbuster to run this long or longer was Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar” back in fall 2014 at 169 minutes. Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” also hit the 169 minute mark in December 2012.
Read More: ‘Blade Runner 2049’ Prequel Short Film: Jared Leto Has Designed His Own Army of Replicants
Just for some perspective, Marvel’s longest feature to date is “Captain America: Civil War” and it only runs 147 minutes. The original “Blade Runner” theatrical cut ran 117 minutes. The only other major releases to run longer in recent years were Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-nominated “The Wolf of Wall Street” (179 minutes) and Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight” (168 minutes). “Blade Runner 2049” will clock in longer than “The Revenant” (156 minutes) and “Silence” (161 minutes) as well.
Villeneuve told Collider at Comic-Con back in July that the movie would run 2 hours and 30 minutes, but the director was still working in the editing room on the movie and admitted the final cut wouldn’t be locked until late August or September. It appears Villeneuve just couldn’t cut certain elements out of the film and it will run around 13 minutes longer than originally expected.
“Blade Runner 2049” stars Ryan Gosling as Officer Q, a Los Angeles Police Department officer who uncovers a plan to destroy what’s left of civilization, leading him on a mission to locate Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford). The film is set three decades after the events of the original. Robin Wright, Mackenzie Davis, David Bautista, and Ana de Armas co-star.
Warner Brothers will release “Blade Runner 2049” in theaters nationwide October 6.
