Marvel's 'The Avengers - Endgame' will reportedly be just over three hours long

On April 26, Marvel's current phase of comic book movies draws to the end, with the release of The Avengers: Endgame. It's the 22nd film in their interconnected cinematic universe, ending a story that began more than a decade ago.

At the end of last year's blockbuster, 'Avengers: Infinity War,' fans were rocked by a devastating cliffhanger: The evil purple alien Thanos acquired all six Infinity Stones and snapped his fingers, extinguishing half of all life - including many of beloved Avengers. (Well, that's one way to solve the earth's overpopulation problem.)

Following the trailer's release, fans have been dying to see how, or if, the surviving heroes defeat Thanos and/or resurrect their dead friends. (Let's face it, it's "how," not "if." I expect to see a lot of time travel / alternate universe mumbo jumbo, but hey, just guessing.) Reportedly, the old guard - like Ironman, Captain America and Thor - might die or retire, ushering in a new guard headed by Black Panther, Captain Marvel and Doctor Strange.

We don't know who lives or dies in the film, but we have learned the running time - and you probably shouldn't chug a lot of water before your local screening. On Monday, MCUComics.com founder Jeremy Conrad tweeted, "AMC has update their website with the official synopsis for #AvengersEndgame and lists the runtime as 3 hours, 2 minutes." The image reveals the runtime to be three hours and two minutes.

According to the film's directors, brothers Anthony and Joe Russo, the film has been test screened three times, and not once did an audience take a bathroom break. "We're still at the three-hour mark. I think the studio is down with what the best story is," Joe Russo told Collider last month.  "Right now, we think the movie is playing well and we've had great responses from our test audiences and we're feeling very good about where it is. We're still doing work to it. We're not done with it."

He added, "When you have to tell a really complicated story and you want strong emotional moments with the characters, it just requires a certain amount of real estate. This one, in particular, feels like three hours' worth of real estate."