‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Tickets Set to Go on Sale Early as Runtime Points to Another Epic Marvel Event

Disney is reportedly opening early premium-format ticket sales for ‘Avengers: Doomsday,’ which is currently listed with a 165-minute runtime ahead of its Dec. 18 release.

Marvel is getting ready to turn ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ into an event months before it hits theaters.

Disney is reportedly planning to put domestic premium-format tickets for ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ on sale July 20, nearly five months ahead of the film’s Dec. 18 release. The early ticket launch will apply to Infinity Vision theaters, Disney’s new large-format designation for select screens showing the next ‘Avengers’ installment.

The move is a major statement of confidence from the studio and a clear sign that Disney wants ‘Doomsday’ positioned as more than just another Marvel release. After years of uneven momentum for the MCU, this is the movie designed to make the franchise feel massive again.

The early ticket sale also comes with a reported runtime: 165 minutes, or two hours and 45 minutes. That number is not necessarily final, since the film’s finished cut is unlikely to be locked this far ahead of release, but once tickets are being sold against a schedule, any changes would likely be minor.

At 165 minutes, ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ would run longer than ‘Avengers: Infinity War,’ which clocked in at 149 minutes, but shorter than ‘Avengers: Endgame,’ which ran 181 minutes. In other words, Marvel is once again going big, but not quite “three-hour bladder challenge” big.

Disney’s Infinity Vision rollout comes after Warner Bros. secured Imax theaters for ‘Dune: Part III’ for three weeks following the shared Dec. 18 release date. With both films competing for premium screens, Disney is building its own large-format branding around ‘Doomsday’ and using early ticket sales to lock in fan interest well before the holiday box office battle begins.

The studio is also planning an Infinity Vision rerelease of ‘Avengers: Endgame’ on Sept. 25 under the title ‘Avengers: Endgame Encore.’ The 2019 blockbuster remains the second-highest-grossing film of all time with $2.8 billion worldwide, trailing only ‘Avatar.’ Bringing it back to theaters gives Marvel a clear runway into ‘Doomsday’ and an easy way to remind audiences what an ‘Avengers’ movie can still mean at full scale.

The timing is also strategic. Tickets are expected to go on sale just days before Marvel’s return to Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con on July 25, where the studio is expected to unveil the first full trailer for ‘Avengers: Doomsday.’ Given the ticket plan, an online trailer release seems likely as well.

‘Doomsday’ reunites the Avengers as they face a new multiverse-level threat in Doctor Doom, played by Robert Downey Jr. The casting remains one of the film’s biggest headlines, with the former Iron Man star returning to the MCU in a very different role after helping define the franchise for more than a decade.

POPULAR ON THE CINEMA GROUP

The cast also includes Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Chris Evans as Steve Rogers, Paul Rudd as Ant-Man, Pedro Pascal as Mister Fantastic, Anthony Mackie as Captain America, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, Sebastian Stan as Winter Soldier, Vanessa Kirby as Invisible Woman, Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, Letitia Wright as Black Panther, Patrick Stewart as Professor X, Ian McKellen as Magneto, Rebecca Romijn as Mystique and more.

Anthony and Joe Russo, who directed ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier,’ ‘Captain America: Civil War,’ ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ and ‘Avengers: Endgame,’ are back behind the camera. Their return is another sign that Marvel is leaning hard into the team that delivered the MCU’s biggest theatrical moments.

The early ticket strategy follows a growing trend of studios using premium-format presales to turn major releases into long-lead events. Universal recently generated attention by putting select Imax tickets for Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ on sale a full year in advance. Now, Disney appears to be making its own move with ‘Avengers: Doomsday,’ using demand, format exclusivity and Comic-Con timing to restart the Marvel hype machine.

Whether ‘Doomsday’ can restore the MCU to ‘Endgame’-level dominance remains to be seen. But between the early ticket launch, the giant cast, the Russos’ return, Downey’s Doctor Doom and a nearly three-hour runtime, Disney is clearly treating this as the biggest Marvel movie in years.

‘Avengers: Doomsday’ opens in theaters Dec. 18.