The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies Run Time Is Shorter Than Prevoius Films In The Series

Viewers' final adventure into Middle Earth will, surprisingly, also be their briefest.

Warner Bros. Pictures have announced the final runtime for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. With the film clocking in at two hours and twenty four minutes, it will be The Hobbit trilogy's shortest installment. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey ran for two hours and forty six minutes, and its sequel, The Hobbit: The Deolation of Smaug, ran for two hours and forty one minutes.

In fact, the The Battle of the Five Armies will be Peter Jackson's short J.R.R. Tolkien film ever. The first two Lord of the Rings films ran over two and a half hours long, and the final film, the The Return of the King, ran in at a butt-numbing three hours and twenty minutes.

There's no word as to why The Battle of the Five Armies is taking a shortcut to the finish line. Though when one splits a single book into three films, there's only so much they can stretch out. Hopefully, the final Hobbit sequel will make up for the lack of quantity with quality. In fact, Jackson said during this year's San Diego Comic-Con that The Battle of Five Armies is his favorite Hobbit film.

"By the time we are done with this film, I think it will be the most emotional, the most tense of the three – I think it's my favorite of the three," Jackson said. "Seriously, it's got a nice thrill and a pace to it."

Viewers can judge for themselves when the The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies opens on December 17th.