'Avengers 4' Is Only About Halfway Through Editing Process

Avengers 4 lands in theaters in less than seven months, leading audiences to wonder when we'll ever get a glimpse at the upcoming adventure. Co-director of the film Joe Russo recently did a social media Q&A and confirmed that the film is roughly halfway through the editing process.

"We are about halfway through the editing process. We're really just scratching the surface on all of our VFX shots," Russo shared on Instagram. "There are more than 3,000 VFX shots in the movie. Those require a lot of time and thought and energy and effort. We're very early in that phase of getting VFX done. We just started work with Alan Silvestri on the score. And we're still editing picture at this point."

The implications that work has begun on visual effects sequences and that Silvestri is working on the score would seem to mean the film has almost locked its cut, even if those complicated shots might not be finished until the days before the film hits theaters. Typically films of this scale don't bother wasting money on shots that won't be seen in the theatrical cut, though Marvel Studios and its vast resources have previously included shots in their trailers that were never meant to be included in the final product.

Russo also teased the current running time of the film, which could get shorter in the coming months.

"The running time on Avengers 4 is currently sitting right at three hours, so we'll see if that holds, but it's sitting right at three hours right now," Russo explained.

This echoes comments he made earlier this year to Collider about the film's length, once again teasing it will likely shrink from that estimate.

"I'd say it could easily be a three-hour film," Joe explained. "But I think that, you know, we're very hard on the material. We like it to play at a certain pace. I'm sure that we'll squeeze it."

Infinity War clocked in at two hours and 40 minutes, making it the longest entry yet in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Given the catastrophic events of that film and how this sequel will have to solve all of these problems, Avengers 4 will surely exceed its predecessor's length.

Avengers 4 lands in theaters on May 3, 2019. Avengers: Infinity War and Ant-Man and the Wasp are now available as digital downloads and Blu-ray and DVD. Upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies include Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019 and Spider-Man: Far From Home on July 5, 2019.