Rian Johnson's STAR WARS: EPISODE VIII Pushed Back To December 2017
Some disappointment for Star Wars fans, as Lucasfilmn has announced that we're going to have to wait an extra 7 months to find out if Luke Skywalker ever took that damn lightsaber from Rey! Rian Johnson's still untitled Episode VIII will now open on December 15, 2017. Click on for more...
This is a good news/bad news type deal. Disney and Lucasfilm have just announced that Looper director Rian Johnson is set to begin shooting Star Wars: Episode VIII in London next month... but the follow up to J.J. Abrams' phenomenal The Force Awakens now won't hit theaters until December 15 of next year, when it was originally scheduled for release on May 26.
From the sounds of things they're simply trying to replicate the success of the previous film in the saga, which also opened in December and was - and continues to be - a box office monster.
Here's the official statement:
"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."
This new date sets up a battle of the sci-fi blockbusters, as Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One opens just one week later. It's disappointing for sure, but 7 months isn't that much longer to wait - remember the Batman V Superman push-back?
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Mark Cassidy is a writer, photographer, amateur filmmaker, and Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic from Dublin, Ireland.