Avengers 4 director Joe Russo has given fans some salivating bits and pieces of info about the upcoming Marvel Studios movie, including a semi-confirmation of the movie’s running time. The highly anticipated sequel to this year’s Avengers: Infinity War is shrouded in secrecy and all us fans have to chew on are largely plot rumors, time travel theories, concept art leaks and “purported” trailer descriptions. Now, while promoting the launch of his bar Duello in downtown Los Angeles, Joe Russo participated in an Instagram live stream where he revealed several tantalizing bits about next year’s Avengers capper.

Joe confirmed the movie’s runtime as clocking in at 3 hours at the ­moment, although he cautioned that this was subject to change as they’re almost halfway through editing the movie. This shouldn’t be that surprising given that the brothers had revealed the possibility of a 3-hour run time during the promotion of Infinity War as well. He also revealed that the movie has over 3,000 VFX shots, with each one being crafted with special care. Presumably, if those time travel theories are true, plenty of de-aging effects would be required to make actors look like they were half a decade ago.

The running time on Avengers 4 is currently sitting right at three hours. We’ll see if that holds. We’re about halfway through the editing process. We’re really just scratching the surface on our VFX shots. 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.

Moreover, Joe also revealed that they had begun discussing the score with Alan Silvestri. The veteran Marvel alum, who gave the studio its most recognizable and iconic Avengers theme was roped in to score both Avengers movies and even though it’s too early to begin discussions on the score, it’s great to see him involved this early. If anything, I can only hope that remnants of his score make it to one of the trailers.

We’ve just started work with Alan Silvestri on the score, and we’re still editing picture at this point.

Teasing the movie’s stakes, given that Infinity War had infinitely elevated stakes and delivered on the hype by disintegrating more than half the cast, Joe Russo promised that the stakes in Avengers 4 would be even higher.

Will the stakes be higher in Avengers 4? Absolutely. 100 percent. The highest of any of the films to date, without question.

Upon being asked about the movie’s titled, which has been theorized to no end over the internet, Joe Russo did a Mark Ruffalo and pretended to reveal the title before a technical error glitched the feed out. Speaking of which, on the subject of Mark Ruffalo having revealed the title, he jokingly reminded viewers that Ruffalo was fired.

Didn’t we fire Mark Ruffalo? Yes,we fired Mark Ruffalo. Mark’s fired.

Finally, on being probed about a trailer for Avengers 4, he teased that it could arrive before the end of this calendar year, but don’t count on it though.

You may or may not see it before the calendar turns to 2019.

While a lot of the above info may not be as spoilerish or insightful as fans would’ve hoped, it’s still much better than the stuff we’ve been getting about the movie off-late, which is practically negligible. Personally, I’m all for the 3-hour running time. A finale like this deserves the most screen time it can get and given the right script and filmmaking, we could have an epic conclusion to a sprawling saga on our hands, like The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

What do you glean from the info that Joe shared? Let us know in the comments below.

Avengers 4 a.k.a. Avengers: Untitled arrives in theaters on May 3, 2019.