An enormous threat to the Marvel Universe was detected over the weekend. No, not Thanos, the purple alien warlord intent on killing half of the universe’s inhabitants in Avengers: Infinity War. Something even worse for fans of the superhero film franchise in Indonesia – news that Infinity War would be receiving a sinister 7-minute cut to its theatrical run-time by the country’s Film Censorship Institute (LSF) when it opens to the public here on April 25.
Local media outlet Kompas’ spider-sense started tingling when they saw that LSF’s website listed the film’s official duration in Indonesia as 149 minutes, compared to the original length listed on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) of 156 minutes. The news seemed to be confirmed on Saturday by LSF Chairman Ahmad Yani Basuki, who said he signed off on the LSF censored version of the film (despite not having seen it yet) and speculated that it was likely due to violence in the film.
However, more recent statements by Yani and LSF officials seem to indicate that no cuts had in fact been made to the highly-anticipated superhero epic, saying that the version bound for theaters was exactly the same version they had received from the distributor.
“LSF did not make any cuts to the film, we accepted it with the age classification of 13 years and older,” Yani told local news portal Detik on Sunday.
LSF spokesman Rommy Fibri similarly told Liputan 6 on Sunday, “The Avenger film judged 13+ received no censorship, meaning no parts were cut. In other words, the info that was circulated yesterday is not true.”
Strangely, while Rommy assured the media that LSF had not made any cuts to the film, he also asserted that the version of film they received from the distributor was just 149 minutes in length.
That leaves open the possibility that somehow LSF received a version that had already been cut in some way by the distributor, though it looks like it might actually be IMDB that has the wrong run-time as some movie theaters in other countries are also reporting the 149-minute run time (some theorizing that IMDB was given an estimated run-time before final cuts were made).
At any rate, it makes sense that Infinity War would make it to Indonesian theaters unscathed, as traditionally the country’s overzealous censors have been far more concerned with sexual content than cartoonish violence. None of the previous Marvel Studio movies were reported to have received major cuts in Indonesia.
As well as calming down the dangerously angry Marvel fanboys of Indonesia, the news should please Joe Russo, one of the film’s co-directors, who had expressed shock when asked about the 7-minutes cut in Indonesia during a press conference in Singapore on Sunday to promote the movie (starts at about 26:40).
While he wondered aloud what about the film might have required cutting, Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr. reportedly told the press conference attendees that he knew exactly what had been too hot for Indonesian theaters.
“I’ll show you the seven lost minutes,” RDJ said before getting up and looking like he was about to do a sexy dance for the audience (he didn’t, unfortunately, but a Stark-worthy joke nonetheless).
