Running time for Star Wars: The Force Awakens revealed

With Star Wars: The Force Awakens only 31 days away from release (eek!), another tidbit of information has been revealed courtesy of Entertainment Weekly, who report that Star Wars 7 has a running time of 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Furthermore, director J.J. Abrams apparently locked picture at midnight on November 3 and will be "spending the next few weeks finalising the film’s visual effects, sound effects and a final scoring session with composer John Williams."

On the face of it a running time of 135 minutes is perfectly acceptable for a modern blockbuster, but in the end it always comes down to the film's quality. If the pace is lagging then a film can feel overlong, but if it's engrossing enough then two hours can fly by. All we've seen and heard so far indicates that the latter is more likely for The Force Awakens, and hopefully that notion will be validated when it opens in cinemas next month.

Directed by Abrams and starring Andy Serkis, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Mark Hamill, Oscar Isaac and Gwendoline Christie, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is released in UK cinemas on December 17 2015 before opening in US theatres a day later. Check out our analysis of the international trailer below...

Amon Warmann

Amon is a contributing editor and columnist for Empire magazine, but is also a Film and TV writer for GamesRadar+, Total Film, and others. He has also written for NME, Composer Mag, and more, along with being a film critic for TalkSport. He is also the co-host of the Fade to Black Podcast, and a video mashup creator. Can also do a pretty good Bane impersonation.