Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning story set to feature Hunt attempting to take down the Entity, an AI threat, once and for all.

A new listing for The Final Reckoning on the AMC Theaters website now reveals that Mission: Impossible 8 will be two hours and 49 minutes with credits. As seen in the chart below, this makes it the longest movie in the franchise's history.

What This Means For The Final Reckoning

Will The Runtime Hurt Or Help The Mission: Impossible Movie?

So far, there has been no official confirmation that the Mission: Impossible movie will be the last one, but the title and the sense of finality in the trailer suggest it could be. The elongated runtime further speaks to just how epic Hunt's adventure will be, and it's possible that the movie is especially long because it will also be serving as a franchise farewell. A lot could depend on box office, however, and it seems likely that the door will be left open for another installment should The Final Reckoning be a hit.

Runtime can have an impact on box office. In addition to some audiences just not wanting to sit that long for a movie, longer runtimes also limit how many times a day a movie can screen in theaters. As proven by the top three highest-grossing movies of all time, though – Avatar (2h 42m), Avengers: Endgame (3h 1m) and Avatar: The Way of Water (3h 12m) – audiences are still very willing to show up to show up en masse for the right titles, even when they're well over two-and-a-half hours.

Our Take On Mission: Impossible 8's Runtime

Why The Final Reckoning Probably Won't Feel Too Long

Though getting up close to the three-hour mark can sometimes be dicey, a well-paced long movie is almost always easier to watch than a poorly-paced short one. If the Mission: Impossible franchise has demonstrated anything with its most recent installments, it's that McQuarrie and Cruise know how to keep audiences on the edges of their seats. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning reviews were glowing from critics and audiences, after all, and that movie wasn't far off from The Final Reckoning's runtime.

From what has been revealed in trailers and hyped by the director and cast, The Final Reckoning features the franchise's biggest and most ambitious action sequences ever. It's very likely that one reason for the longer runtime is that there is just more action and more stunts. It remains to be seen whether Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning earns its runtime, but the film is definitely shaping up to be an epic theater experience.

Source: AMC Theaters