In case you had any doubts, Avengers 4 is shaping up to be quite the superhero epic. Of course, the film is still in the thick of post-production so the final details are far from nailed down, but director Joe Russo sat down for an Instagram live today and offered some updates on where they're at in the edit and the run time of the current cut. Spoilers: It's long as hell.

“The running time on Avengers 4 is currently sitting right at three hours," he said during an Instagram live video to promote his new Los Angeles bar, Duello (h/t: THR). The filmmaker added, "We’ll see if that holds, but it's sitting right at three hours right now.”

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Image via Marvel

Again, the film is still in post-production and doesn't arrive in theaters until May 4, 2019, which means there's a lot of time for that runtime to change. In fact, for those who are wondering just where the Russos are at in their post process, the filmmaker says they're about half-way done.

“We’re about halfway through the editing process. We’re really just scratching the surface on our VFX shots," Russo said. "There are more than 3,000 VFX shots in the movie; those require a lot of time and thought and energy and effort, and we’re very early in the phase of getting VFX done. We’ve just started work with Alan Silvestri on the score, and we’re still editing picture at this point.”

As for whether or not Disney and Marvel studios would release a three-hour film, when we spoke to Joe and Anthony Russo ahead of Avengers: Infinity War, the filmmakers said that the studio never put any sort of time limitations on their movies. Joe Russo added that he thought Avengers 4 would clock in as longer than Infinity War's 149 minute runtime, but seemed hesitant about the idea of hitting the three-hour mark.

"It could easily be a three hour film but we’re very hard on the material," he said at the time. "We like it to play at a certain pace. I’m sure that we’ll squeeze it...I do think it will be longer than Avengers 3." But there's been a lot of time for that to change in the months since, just like there will be plenty of time for the current cut to evolve before May of next year.

We may have to wait for a while to learn the official running time on Avengers 4, but it sounds like we're probably going to see the first footage sooner than later. During today's Q&A, a fan asked when the first trailer for the highly-anticipated sequel would drop. Russo played coy, but hinted, "You may or may not see it before the calendar turns to 2019."

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Image via Marvel Studios
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