James Gunn’s Superman is the shortest Superman movie in nearly 40 years
Supermanis days away from arriving in cinemas worldwide and launching theDCU, and it has an uncharacteristically short runtime compared to the hero’s other movies.
Somesuperhero movieswarrant long runtimes; for example, Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame have enormous rosters and juggle several important plots, so they deserve to be around the three-hour mark.
Others are either indulgently long or simply poorly paced, whether it’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2h42m), Zack Snyder’s Justice League (4h2m), or Eternals (2h36m).
Superman movies tend to be on thelongside, with only a small handful of exceptions – and James Gunn’s new movie is one of them.
How long is the new Superman movie?
James Gunn’s Superman has a runtime of two hours and nine minutes (129 minutes). That makes it the fourth-shortest Superman movie of all time, and you can find them ordered from shortest to longest below:
That doesn’t include extended and alternate cuts. For example, the Richard Donner Cut of Superman II is only 116 minutes long, while Snyder’s Ultimate Edition of BvS is a full 31 minutes longer than the theatrical release.
This list also doesn’t include ‘Josstice League’ or the Snyder Cut; you wouldn’t include The Avengers on a list of Iron Man movies, so why would they be included with Superman films?
If you cast your eye back before Donner’s first Superman film, there are three other entries you could include for fun: 1948’s 15-part Superman serial, which runs for 244 minutes combined; 1950’s Atom Man vs Superman, which has a 252-minute runtime with all 15 chapters; and 1951’s Superman and the Mole Men, the first feature film based on any DC comics character, which has a 58-minute runtime.
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Superman hits cinemas on July 11. Until then, readour list of Superman movies ranked by Rotten Tomatoes scoresand check out thefirst reactionsto the new film.
