'It Chapter Two' Will Terrify Audiences For Nearly 3 Hours

Are you ready for nearly three full hours of clown-induced terror? You better be, because the It Chapter Two runtime has been revealed, and the news is intimidating, to say the least. The highly anticipated horror sequel, adapted from the admittedly hefty tome by Stephen King, is going to clock in at a whopping 2 hours and 45 minutes. And if that's not long enough for you, don't worry: there's a 4-hour director's cut that will probably show up on Blu-ray.

Stephen King's It is a long book – 1,138-pages long, to be precise. As a result, any adaptation that wants to attempt to capture the breadth of what King created is going to be a bit lengthy. Rather than try to cram everything into one movie, the 2017 It film adaptation took only a fraction of what King wrote – but still ended up clocking in at 135 minutes. Now, It Chapter Two will continue, and conclude the story. And if you thought the first film was long, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

According to director Andy Muschietti, the original cut of the sequel ran about 4 hours long – a runtime that was then whittled down but not by a lot. "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 told Digital Spy.

But those of you who would sit through an even longer cut are in luck. Muschietti's producing partner Barbara Muschietti confirmed that a director's cut will eventually be released. "We will put out a director's cut because this time it definitely merits it," she said. "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."

I'm all-in on this. If Avengers: Endgame can run 181 minutes, there's no reason It Chapter Two can't run 165. I'm of the opinion that no movie is too long – if it's working. If the movie you're watching has excellent pacing, a long runtime can breeze on by (see: Zodiac). If the pacing sucks, however, well...you're in for a long slog (see: too many modern-day movies to count). Based on the first film's pacing, I have a good feeling about the sequel, lengthy runtime be damned. Here's hoping I won't regret that.

It Chapter Two opens September 6.