So far, we’ve seen two films released since Disney‘s acquisition of Lucasfilm, and both have been monster hits: “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” totaled $2.1 billion worldwide, and it looks like “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” will easily cross $1 billion worldwide. Both films were released in December, as will be the upcoming “Star Wars: Episode VIII” which, barring some kind of disaster, will also make a billion dollars and then some. Disney has clearly made the holiday season theirs, so why mess with a good thing?
According to the very well connected Making Star Wars, Phil Lord and Chris Miller‘s developing Han Solo spinoff movie starring Alden Ehrenreich, Donald Glover, and Emilia Clarke is now eyeballing a December 13, 2018 release date, which would push the movie back a few months from its currently planned slot of May 25, 2018. And the move makes a lot of sense.
With “Avengers: Infinity War” dropping on May 4, 2018, releasing a “Star Wars” film three weeks later doesn’t make much sense, and would potentially cut into the long tail play of the Marvel movie. Meanwhile, the only picture scheduled on the December 13, 2018 weekend is the Peter Jackson-produced “Mortal Engines” which lands the next day. (It should be noted, December 13th is a Thursday; presumably the sources Making Star Wars are counting the traditional Thursday evening showings as the “opening day”).
Again, this is not official, but given Disney’s current success in the December corridor, it stands to reason that making “Star Wars” a part of everyone’s holiday tradition is just good business. Thoughts? Let us know below.
Kinda figure this would happen. Releasing a tired franchise superblockbuster in late December now basically guarantees the film will go unchallenged for a solid six weeks or so. A real chance to bring in money. Releasing a tired superblockbuster in the summer only guarantees it will be challenged by another tired superblockbuster the following Friday.
Unless James Cameron suddenly becomes a speedy filmmaker and has AVATAR 2 ready for December 2018 (he won’t) Han Solo: A Tired Star Wars Story will release in December.
I don’t think it’s a tired franchise at all, I felt the series became rejuvenated after the Force Awakens. I hope not a year goes by without a new Star Wars adventure from here on out. The good thing about multiplexes is there’s always another option if SW isn’t your cup of tea. Personally, I’d rather watch a new Star Wars movie three or four times in the span of three weeks than sit through another Oscar drama, which again, I’m happy there’s now choices during the Christmas break.
Didn’t they do the same thing with VIII? I mean why did they ever schedule a film for May if they’re gonna do this everytime?
So they get free press announcing the release date, I suppose.
That’s a theory I suppose, I mean it’s not like they just realized they own Marvel too
I was just being cynical. They’re having quite a bit of success with the Christmas release, so I too wonder why it’s even a point of discussion.
I thought it was just accepted now that all Star Wars movies would be coming out at Christmas.