“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” may be Peter Jackson’s shortest Tolkien adaptation to date, but its epic running time is nothing to shake a stick at.
“It”s looking like it”s going to be about ten minutes shorter than ‘Fellowship’ was,” said Jackson in a interview with Empire magazine. “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.”
Boy, it’s a good thing they split this sucker into three movies.
For the record, the theatrical running times for Jackson’s three “Lord of the Rings” movies are as follows:
“The Fellowship of the Ring”: 178 mins.
“The Two Towers”: 179 mins.
“The Return of the King”: 201 mins. (ow)
“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” hits theaters on December 13.