STAR WARS EPISODE VIII Delay Helps Alleged Rewrites to Further Develop Characters and Maximize Box Office Potential
STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS more than did its job for Disney and Lucasfilm by bringing a galaxy far, far away back to relevancy for both old and new fans. It also started the 'passing of the torch' process from the Original Trilogy cast to a new, younger cast of characters.
Yesterday news broke that STAR WARS EPISODE VIII has been pushed from its May 2017 release back to a December 15, 2017 release date. This is being done for two reasons: one was confirmed via Disney's press release and the other is one that is reported by a writer for The Hollywood Reporter.
The first reason is that The Force Awakens absolutely owned this past holiday movie season and has nearly brought in $2 billion worldwide since release. Disney has acknowledged that the holiday's movie window really helped with its remarkable, recording breaking box office tally and they want to continue this trend.
The following is straight from Disney's press release:
"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..."
The fact the press release cites "the popular holiday moviegoing corridor" is more than enough proof that Disney would rather not have Star Wars compete in the summer movie season with their Marvel Studios film releases. It seems clear Disney wants Star Wars to be a part of your holidays every year so that's the only big blockbuster movie option during the season — albeit the line in the sand has been drawn for a possible showdown versus Avatar 2 in December 2017 but it seems more than logical for James Cameron to move his sequel away from Episode VIII.
It also helps that holiday toy sales for The Force Awakens were through the roof for Disney, too. Time to mentally prepare yourself to go on the hunt for those elusive Star Wars toys every holiday season moving forward.
The other reason for Episode VIII being pushed back is due to the sudden popularity of new characters in The Force Awakens. According to a writer for The Hollywood Reporter, writer/director Rian Johnson is rewriting the script in order to add character development to some of the new characters who now needed a bump in screen time in his script.
"Obviously the December date worked out very (very) well for [Disney and Lucasfilm] but I've also heard they are rewriting the script. I've heard from several sources the rewrites are positive, based on audience reaction to the new characters. People loved them. So strongly. And Lucasfilm was surprised at how well they were received, according to several sources."
This is really a good thing because characters like Poe, who fans have fallen in love with, may have not had much to do in Johnson's Episode VIII script. But now that Poe is a breakout character fans want more. Side note: Poe is just being used as an example here, but he is probably one of the characters who are a part of Johnson's rewrites to give him a larger role.
So while it totally sucks that Episode VIII isn't coming out in May 2017 anymore, Johnson having more time to rewrite the script to bring some of the newer characters to the forefront for further development is a great thing. If this means a best possible version of Episode VIII will be coming out in December 2017 instead of May 2017, then Star Wars fans should be okay with the delay.
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