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| Lucasfilm/Disney |
Director Rian Johnson has a huge task on his hands…about $1.8+ billion dollars worth. That’s the figure reportedly earned by J.J. Abrams for his latest,
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which pretty much broke almost every record you can probably imagine after opening last month in the U.K. and U.S..
Success notwithstanding, the film did stir the pot with fans in its delivery, speculating over who Daisy Ridley’s Rey really is and such, and the nature of Kylo Ren’s past with respect to the cast along with
talk of a delay in production in recent memory. These are all fun questions and convos to have and share and there’s no doubt it’ll get silly as well.
That all said, there’s at least one other guarantee, and it’s the film’s pushback from May 26, 2017 to its new stamp for December 15, 2017. Details are pending but it’s expected that Ridley will return as Rey with John Boyega reprising his role as former Stormtrooper-turned-rebel against the First Order, Finn, in addition to Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, and others.
As for whether or not stuntman and martial artist Liang Yang will return as another badass Stormtrooper or some other form of First Order badassery, time will tell. We all like him, right?
Today, Disney and Lucasfilm announced that Star Wars: Episode VIII, originally scheduled for release in summer 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 outside the traditional summer blockbuster window and 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 $861.3 million and the third biggest global release ever with $1,886.7 billion.
Written and directed by Rian Johnson, Star Wars: Episode VIII is currently in preproduction and will begin principal photography in London next month. Kathleen Kennedy and Ram Bergman will produce and J.J. Abrams, Jason McGatlin, and Tom Karnowski will executive produce. Stay tuned for exciting updates in the coming weeks.
