JJ Abrams completes final cut of Star Wars: The Force Awakens

JJ Abrams has completed work on the highly anticipated new Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, the director revealed on Saturday night.

The first film in a new trilogy planned by studio Disney was put to bed at 2.30am on the morning of 21 November. Abrams revealed he had completed the film later the same day, in an interview with the US comic Stephen Colbert in Newark, New Jersey.

In front of an audience for a Montclair film festival fundraising event, the film-maker also confirmed he had responded to critics of his fondness for lens flare by ensuring the technique would be kept to a minimum in his new film. “The Force Awakens will have some lens flare, but only when it’s unavoidable or necessary,” Abrams promised. “This is not the movie for that. These are not the flares you’re looking for.”

The Force Awakens is due in UK cinemas on 17 December, and in US multiplexes a day later. Disney released a clip of the new film over the weekend, which focuses on Daisy Ridley’s Rey and John Boyega’s Finn, though it features little in the way of new footage.

Rather more revealing was a new TV advert focused on the film’s X-Wing squadrons. Previously unseen footage suggests that Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron will be joined in the single-seater spacecraft by pilot Jessika Pava and Nien Nunb, the alien who helped Lando Calrissian pilot the Millennium Falcon in 1983’s Return of the Jedi.

Last week it was revealed that The Force Awakens has smashed all known records for advance ticket sales in the US, selling more than $50m worth. Advance sales for British screenings have also been plentiful, with Disney reporting a record 200,000-plus purchases in the first 24 hours of availability on 20 October. The impressive figures are fuelling speculation that Abrams’s film could challenge Avatar for the mantle of highest-grossing film of all time.