The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will be Peter Jackson’s shortest film involving the characters from Middle-Earth.
Jackson’s first three movies, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King had an average run time of over three hours. The first two installments of the Lord Of the Rings franchise were about two hours and 50 minutes long while the final movie was about three hours and 20 minutes long.
The director will return to Middle-Earth with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. The new movie is expected to be Jackson’s shortest film from the world of J.R.R. Tolkein with a run time of about two hours and 40 minutes.
“It’s looking like it’s going to be about ten minutes shorter than ‘Fellowship’ was. So it’s going to be officially our shortest Middle-earth yet. I mean, ‘Fellowship’ was just under three hours and this is about 2 hours 40 minutes at the moment.”
Zap2it reports that the Jackson is still working on the special effects for the new movie so the exact run time may differ slightly from his estimate.
Jackson originally planned on filming two movies based on The Hobbit. Earlier this year he announced that there was too much story to tell and decided to divide the story up into three films.
Jackson said:
“It has been an unexpected journey indeed, and in the words of Professor Tolkien himself, ‘a tale that grew in the telling.’ So Without further ado and on behalf of New Line Cinema, Warner Bros. Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Wingnut Films, and the entire cast and crew of “The Hobbit” films, I’d like to announce that two films will become three.”