No Time To Die is the longest James Bond movie ever, it seems

(Image credit: Danjaq/Universal Pictures)

No Time To Die will be the longest James Bond film ever, it seems. US cinema chain Regal has unveiled the runtime of the new Bond movie No Time To Die – and at an eye-watering 163 minutes, you better make sure you go to the bathroom before you sit down to watch it. That's two hours and 43 minutes total, and only 18 minutes shorter than the very long Avengers: Endgame.

Regal and Netherlands-based chain Pathe both offer the same number (thanks to our friends at GamesRadar for spotting this). The previous record-holder for longest Bond movie was the bloated Spectre, which was 148 minutes long (and felt like it).

Still, while it's possible this number isn't totally accurate, it's in the ballpark of a previous reveal about No Time To Die's runtime. In January 2020, a Russian cinema chain listed it as 174 minutes, which is a little longer, but not far off the other estimates:

As posted here https://t.co/QnhBzE6aJr, last week Universal Russia informed local cinemas of a provisional runtime of 174 minutes - which has since been scrubbed off Russian sources for obvious reasons... https://t.co/gZgbKvXAVaJanuary 23, 2020

With just over a month until release, No Time To Die's marketing campaign is booting into overdrive. A collaboration with Adidas was revealed this week, with 007 written on the back of some shoes. Let's hope that Bond audaciously pairs those up with a classic tuxedo in No Time To Die for a really bold take on a smart casual look.

No Time To Die releases on April 3.

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Serialized Bond

Make what you will of the lengthy runtime, but the slight downside of Daniel Craig's Bond movies being serialized is that events of past movies need to be addressed in No Time To Die.

The very busy first trailer makes that clear: we've got plot threads with Bond's wife Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux) to tie up, along with the return, in some form, of Blofeld (Christoph Waltz).

If this really is the last Bond movie to feature Craig in the role, there's no doubt the producers want to wrap everything up. But good lord: 163 minutes is a long time.

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Samuel is a PR Manager at game developer Frontier. Formerly TechRadar's Senior Entertainment Editor, he's an expert in Marvel, Star Wars, Netflix shows and general streaming stuff. Before his stint at TechRadar, he spent six years at PC Gamer. Samuel is also the co-host of the popular Back Page podcast, in which he details the trials and tribulations of being a games magazine editor – and attempts to justify his impulsive eBay games buying binges.