Given the amount of characters to juggle, and narrative ground to cover, it’s perhaps not surprising that when Joss Whedon went to cut together "Avengers: Age Of Ultron," he had a lot of material to work with. In fact, his first cut of the movie might’ve been too much for even the most diehard fan, telling Vulture it came in at three-and-a-half hours.
“There’s one or two things that I’m unhappy about not having in there, but they’re small,” Whedon said. “I said to Kevin [Feige] before we started, ‘My secret fantasy that’ll never come true is that the second one is shorter than the first.’ And we’re shorter by a minute.”
And while you might think you want to see those extra minutes, Feige and Whedon both agree that shorter is better. "Most films you can put an assembly together and it can be two hours and 45 minutes to three hours," Feige told Cinema Blend. "I think the longest version of [‘Ultron’] was two hours and 45 minutes, thereabout. The longest version of ‘Ant-Man‘ was three hours, but nobody wants to see those versions of the movie."
And so, you’ll just have to live with the two hour and twenty-two minute version opening in theaters in just a few weeks. And there’s plenty there, with yet another new clip landing online, this time showing Iron Man and Ultron mixing it up. And while we’re on the topic of things you’ll see in the sequel, in case you’re wondering, and if there was any doubt, one of them won’t be Spider-Man, with Feige confirming that news to Collider. So let’s put that rumor to rest.
After that you can check out a few new TV spots (via Comic Book Movie), and close it off with Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Jeremy Renner, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson and Robert Downey Jr. hitting "Jimmy Kimmel Live" to play "Family Feud."
"Avengers: Age Of Ultron" opens on May 1st.