Nooooooooooooooooooo!
Star Wars: Episode VIII was set to premiere in May 26, 2017, a mere handful of months after Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, but now it’s been pushed back to December 15, 2017.
Here’s Disney’s official press release:
Star Wars: Episode VIII, originally scheduled for release on May 26, 2017, will now debut on December 15, 2017. The move follows the extraordinary success of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which was the first Star Wars movie to premiere in December. In the popular holiday moviegoing corridor, it smashed numerous records, including biggest domestic and global debuts of all time as well as the biggest domestic second and third weekends, en route to becoming the highest grossing domestic release of all time with over $861M and the third biggest global release ever with $1.887B.
All right, I was joking at the beginning of this article. This is actually a really great move, for several reasons.
By placing it a year away from Rogue One, it allows for less of a chance of over-saturation and it also allows director Rian Johnson to make the best movie possible.
From a financial point, Disney saw gobs of success with The Force Awakens’ release this past December and no doubt they’d like to replicate that for all their upcoming Star Wars films. Plus now Episode VIII won’t fight with Disney’s other big franchise, Marvel, since Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 comes out on May 5, 2017.
However, Disney didn’t keep Episode VIII’s old release date empty – now Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales will be hitting theaters on May 26, 2017.
Even better, Avatar 2 is scheduled to be released on December 25, 2017. You know, if James Cameron ever starts production on it.
The Force Awakens couldn’t financially beat Avatar globally, but I certainly look forward to this throwdown.
How do you feel about the date change? Are you glad for more space between films, or do you wish you didn’t have to wait as long?
And don’t forget to check out more Star Wars here.
Source: ScreenRant
