IT CHAPTER TWO Official Runtime Revealed

IT CHAPTER TWO will hit the big screen next month, bringing an end to the live-action adaptation of the Stephen King saga. Based off of a new listing for the film on the British Board of Film Classification, moviegoers should brace themselves for a pretty lengthy final chapter. The listing shows the film's runtime at 169 minutes and 11 seconds, or roughly 2 hours and 49 minutes.

Surprisingly, this is actually four minutes longer than previously reported cuts of the film, as director Andy Muschietti revealed the film would be 2 hours and 45 minutes late last month. Even then, there's still quite a lot of CHAPTER TWO that apparently won't make it into the final cut, as the earliest iterations of the film clocked in at 4 hours.

"A movie is very different when you're writing the script and you're building a story compared to what the final product is," Muschietti explained. "At the beginning, when you're writing and building the beats of the story, everything that you put in there seems very essential to the story. However, when you have the movie finally edited and it's 4 hours long, you realize that some of the events and some of the beats can be easily lifted but the essence of the story remains intact.

"You cannot deliver a 4-hour movie because people will start to feel uncomfortable – no matter what they see – but we ended up having a movie that is 2 hours and 45 minutes, and the pacing is very good," Muschietti added. "Nobody who's seen the movie has had any complaint."

As producer Barbara Muschietti reassured, that additional footage will definitely find its way to audiences, in the form of an eventual director's cut.

"We will put out a director's cut because this time it definitely merits it," Barbara added. "We have some amazing scenes that didn't make it into the movie. You have to make choices sometimes and some things cannot be in this theatrical release but are definitely worthy of people seeing them at a later date."

Set 27 years after the previous film, IT CHAPTER TWO features the grown-up Losers' Club reuniting in the small town of Derry, Maine. After believing they had defeated the otherworldly monster Pennywise as children, their reunion makes them hope that they will vanquish the threat once and for all.

The film stars Jessica Chastain as Beverly Marsh, James McAvoy as Bill Denbrough, Bill Hader as Richie Tozier, Isaiah Mustafa as Mike Hanlon, Andy Bean as Stanley Uris, Jay Ryan as Ben Hanscom, and James Ransone as Eddie Kaspbrak. The young versions of the Losers' Club will also be returning, as well as Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise.

What do you think of IT CHAPTER TWO's official runtime? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

IT CHAPTER TWO lands in theaters on September 6th.