STAR WARS: EPISODE 8 Release Date Delayed

I was just writing earlier this morning about a rumor that writer/director Rian Johnson was reworking the script for Star Wars: Episode VIII, so it's not too surprising that I just received a press release from Disney revealing that the release date for that movie has been delayed from May 26th, 2017 until December 15th, 2017.

J.J. Abrams' The Force Awakens was initially slotted for a summer release before being bumped to the holiday season, and even though Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy wanted even more time than that to work on the film, Disney chief Bob Iger promised his shareholders that the movie would be out in 2015, so he forced them to hold to the December date. Fans were excited that Star Wars — which typically came out in the summer — would seemingly return to dominate the summer blockbuster landscape again with Episode VIII, but now that won't be the case. This means that we'll be getting Star Wars movie three Decembers in a row: The Force Awakens last month, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story this year, and Episode VIII next year.

Interestingly, this will also set the stage for a box office battle between Episode VIII and James Cameron's Avatar 2, which opens on December 25th, 2017.

Meanwhile, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales — a movie I'm not sure anyone on Earth is actually excited about — is jumping from its July 7th, 2017 slot into Episode VIII's vacated May release date, so that one will now be released on May 26th, 2017.