It: Chapter Two director Andy Muschietti confirms epic runtime

He also shared when they first edited the film, it came to be four hours long.

“A movie is very different when you’re writing the script and you’re building a story compared to what the final product is. At the beginning, when you’re writing and building the beats of the story, everything that you put in there seems very essential to the story.

“However, when you have the movie finally edited and it’s 4 hours long, you realise that some of the events and some of the beats can be easily lifted but the essence of the story remains intact,” Muschietti said.

The filmmaker, who also directed the first part, said he is happy with the rhythm of the new movie.

“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,” he said.

“Nobody who’s seen the movie has had any complaint,” he added.

Avengers: Endgame still holds the record of the longest runtime at 3 hours, 2 minutes.

Producer Barbara Muschietti said they will also release a director’s cut.

“We will put out a director’s cut because this time it definitely merits it. 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,” she said.

The first film followed the first half of Stephen King’s eponymous novel, telling the story of a group of children who are terrorised by Pennywise the Clown (Bill Skarsgard) and forced to face their own demons to defeat him.

The sequel will follow the last half of the novel, when the characters return to their hometown after 27 years as adults and face Pennywise once again.

The ensemble cast features James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader, Jay Ryan, Isaiah Mustafa, James Ransone, Andy Bean and Skarsgard.

Gary Dauberman has adapted King’s novel for the film.

It: Chapter Two will be released in India in English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu on September 6.