According to director Andy Muschietti, the current cut of IT Chapter Two has a runtime of nearly three hours. One of the biggest surprise hits of 2017, IT adapted half of Stephen King's epic novel about a group of friends and their generation-long battle against an ancient evil. It managed to gross an incredible $700 million worldwide, an accomplishment made even more impressive by its R-rated horror aesthetic and budget of just $35 million.
Following IT's considerable success, a sequel was immediately given the green-light. It will adapt half of the novel, which sees the now-adult members of The Losers' Club reuniting in their hometown to confront Pennywise one more time. The film is scheduled for release on September 6, so important details regarding the horror sequel are starting to trickle in as the marketing push begins to ramp up.
While discussing IT Chapter Two with Digital Spy, director Andy Muschietti confirmed the film currently sits at a hefty 165 minutes, just fifteen minutes shy of a full three hours. The first film was no slouch in the runtime department, with its 135 minute duration, but even that was an outlier for the horror genre, which tends to err on the side of brevity. Most well-known horror films usually run well under two hours, though there are notable recent exceptions like The Conjuring 2 (134 minutes) and A Cure for Wellness (146 minutes).
At this point, IT Chapter Two cannot be viewed as a straight horror movie. It's a full-on cultural phenomenon, and it's unfair and inaccurate to compare it to other horror movies - at least in the buildup to its September release. Blockbuster releases have a comparatively wider berth when it comes to the audience accepting mammoth running times, with the most recent example being Avengers: Endgame, which boasted a duration just over three hours in length and just became the highest-grossing movie of all time worldwide, topping Avatar, which itself ran for 160 minutes.
If edited correctly, a movie will be as long as it needs to be, and audiences will be will be compelled to stay and watch the whole film. Granted, as runtime increases, it becomes more difficult for a movie to sustain a viewer's attention, but that's just another challenge for the film to overcome. If done right, a movie's length will be the last thing on the audience's mind as they leave the theater. Basically, if audiences were willing to accept a 165 minute runtime for Transformers: Age of Extinction, which went on to gross a billion dollars globally, then they should have no problem giving that same amount of time to IT Chapter Two.
Source: Digital Spy
