Thanks to an erroneous posting over on IMDb, moviegoers around the world assumed that Ridley Scott’s upcoming sword and sandals epic, Exodus: Gods and Kings, had an appropriately massive run time to match, with the page pegging the film’s length at an eye-watering, bum-numbing three hours and twenty minutes.
However, 20th Century Fox took to the movie’s official Twitter account and verified the correct length of Scott’s biblical motion picture, stating that the film will run for a much more reasonable two hours and twenty minutes.
People have asked, here’s the answer: running time of Ridley Scott’s ‘Exodus: Gods and Kings’ will be approximately 2 hours 20 mins.
— Exodus (@ExodusMovie) October 21, 2014
Well, we say correct when it should be not-quite-finalized; after all, there’s every chance that the final cut of Exodus: Gods and Kings could dip below or indeed balloon past that aforementioned run time — but going over by a full sixty minutes seems out of the question.
Long-time fans of Scott will know all too well that the filmmaker enjoys releasing director’s cuts of his projects in the years after release — be it for Gladiator, Blade Runner or even Kingdom of Heaven — so there’s every chance we could see this fabled 200 minute-long rendition of Exodus at some point in the future.
Exodus: Gods and Kings will tell the tale of Christian Bale’s Moses who, after defying his closest friend Ramses (Joel Edgerton) and freeing over 60,000 slaves, leads the former captives on a perilous trek across the arid landscapes of Egypt. Joining Bale and Edgerton for the film are Aaron Paul, Ben Kingsley and Sigourney Weaver.
Exodus: Gods and Kings embarks for the silver screen on December 12th, 2014. For more on Scott’s upcoming sword and sandals flick, you can check out our own first impressions.