‘Rogue One’ Gets a Rumored Runtime

Sometimes I feel sorry for studio executives. You put so much time and money into making sure you run a tight ship  —  absolutely no leaks, meaning that you get to dictate when and where details about your new film are released to the public  —  and then one of your corporate partners accidentally posts a key plot point or a character photo on their website earlier than you intended, and all that hard work has been wiped away. It’s tough work keeping Hollywood’s secrets, especially for a movie as big as Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

Case in point? In a neat bit of detective work, the folks over at Making Star Wars (via The Playlist) noticed that Australian exhibitor Event Cinemas had listed the full Rogue One runtime as 133 minutes, or two hours and 13 minutes for those of you who have trouble dividing by 60. For comparison’s sake, here is the complete list of running times for each of the Star Wars movies released thus far:

• Star Wars: A New Hope: 121 minutes (two hours, one minute)
• Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back: 124 minutes (two hours, four minutes)
• Star Wars: Return of the Jedi: 131 minutes (two hours, 11 minutes)
• Star Wars: The Phantom Menace: 136 minutes (two hours, 16 minutes)
• Star Wars: Attack of the Clones: 142 minutes (two hours, 22 minutes)
• Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith: 140 minutes (two hours, 20 minutes)
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens: 138 minutes (two hours, 18 minutes)
• Rogue One: A Star Wars Story: 133 minutes (two hours, 13 minutes)

It’s kind of amusing to note that the length of movies in the Star Wars franchise has followed a very linear path. For four decades, each new Star Wars movie was incrementally longer than its predecessors; this reached its zenith with Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and has slowly declined with the new films under the Disney banner. It’s unlikely that this trend will continue much longer  —  I cannot imagine that Disney would release any Star Wars movie at under two hours  —  but it’s always nice when seemingly random events follow some tidy pattern.

Here’s the full plot synopsis for Rogue One:

From Lucasfilm comes the first of the Star Wars standalone films, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, an all-new epic adventure. In a time of conflict, a group of unlikely heroes band together on a mission to steal the plans to the Death Star, the Empire’s ultimate weapon of destruction. This key event in the Star Wars timeline brings together ordinary people who choose to do extraordinary things, and in doing so, become part of something greater than themselves.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story will hit theaters on December 16, 2016.