MCU: 10 Fascinating Facts Behind The Avengers (2012)

3. Timing Is Everything

Whenever there's a countdown in an action movie, you can usually count on it being grossly over-exaggerated for dramatic purposes. Ten seconds can last a lifetime, if it allows the hero to swoop in and stop the countdown just in the knick of time, so it usually does.

But that's not the case in The Avengers. In the climactic sequence that sees the Avengers battling the Chitauri in New York, the World Security Council decide to take matters into their own hands and nuke the city. When the missile is fired, the pilot calls the detonation as two minutes and thirty seconds away.

From there, the entire sequence right up to Tony Stark flying the missile through the wormhole and it exploding takes exactly two minutes and thirty seconds of film time.