It Should Surprise Nobody That Disney and Lucasfilm Are Considering All STAR WARS Movie Releases For December
Another issue many Star Wars fans had with Disney's ownership of Star Wars was when the media company moved release dates for The Force Awakens, ROGUE ONE and STAR WARS EPISODE VIII from summer to a December holiday release. The purist of pure Star Wars fans felt this was blasphemy to a franchise that had only summer releases, previously. But after the first two Disney-owned releases of new Star Wars movies made millions and billions of box office cash, those purists have become very quiet.
The point of all of this is to say how, in the last two years, Star Wars immediately became synonymous with the end of the year holiday season. Moviegoers get one last big blockbuster movie before the calendar flips. With many people off for the final two weeks of the year for the holidays season — kids from school and some adults from work — it really is a great time of the year for the Star Wars brand exposure with a new movie. And don't forget all the toy sales that are timed so perfectly for that time of the year, too.
Which brings us to our point of this post which is how a new rumor, via MakingStarWars, states Disney and Lucasfilm are considering moving the HAN SOLO standalone movie from May 2018 to December 13, 2018. This move shouldn't be a shock or surprise to any Star Wars fan now, especially considering how Lucasfilm's recent press releases for casting announcements for HAN SOLO vaguely states how the standalone movie has a 2018 release. Not a May 2018 release.
This move would leave STAR WARS EPISODE IX as the only film to still have a release date set in summer, in May 2019, which is probably not happening and it will move to a December 2019 release.
Star Wars Celebration Orlando is this April and announcements are expected for release date moves of HAN SOLO as well as Episode IX to December of their respective release years. Also expected is the first teaser footage for Episode VIII and its official title.
One of the biggest huddles facing Disney and Lucasfilm in moving all the franchise movies to December is James Cameron's AVATAR sequels — Why are there four of them? Seriously. — that are tentatively scheduled to open in consecutive Decembers, starting in 2018. However, there's no new news about his sequels being ready for production and/or filming right now so it seems more and more evident Cameron will move out of December. Even he won't want to compete with the franchise from a galaxy far, far away.
Star Wars is December now and for the foreseeable future.
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