Today’s Lucasfilm presentation at Disney’s D23 convention was heavy on news pertaining to other future films in the Star Wars franchise, but one The Force Awakens nugget of particular interest was dropped: the length of the movie. Or the current length of the movie, to be precise, since J.J. Abrams and his team are still in the midst of post-production. Regardless, while taking the stage to tout the seventh episode of the Star Wars saga, Abrams said the initial cut of the film is running at about 124 minutes.

That’s actually kind of a perfect length for a modern blockbuster. Most big-budget films nowadays get a little carried away, droning on for 140-150 minutes in order to justify all the money put up on the screen. But there’s something to be said for brevity and leaving the audience wanting more (which is exactly what co-writer Lawrence Kasdan said their goal is with Force Awakens), so I find it encouraging to hear the film is currently running at just slightly over two hours in length.


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Image via Lucasfilm

Now of course this isn’t the final runtime and things could shift one way or the other by a couple of minutes, but this is our first indication of just how long the highly anticipated Star Wars pic will be. And for comparison’s sake, here are the lengths of the previous six Star Wars movies:

  • A New Hope – 121 minutes
  • The Empire Strikes Back – 124 minutes
  • Return of the Jedi – 131 minutes
  • The Phantom Menace – 133 minutes
  • Attack of the Clones – 142 minutes
  • Revenge of the Sith – 140 minutes

So the shorter runtime appears to be yet another way Abrams bringing the franchise back to its roots and further away from the prequels. Again, this isn’t the final runtime so “124” isn’t set in stone, but it’s certainly an encouraging update on the status of the film.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens in theaters on December 18th. Peruse our recent Star Wars coverage below:

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Image via Lucasfilm