Star Wars: Episode VIII Release Date Pushed For “Positive” Rewrites Based on Audience Reaction
Millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror but don’t worry, the release date of Star Wars: Episode VIII getting pushed back is not so bad. Word is they’re working on rewrites “based on audience reaction to the new characters.”
The Hollywood Reporter’s Borys Kit tweeted the news just a bit ago, “STAR WARS: EPISODE VIII release date change! Movie is pushed back 7 months, moving from May 26, 2017 to Dec. 15, 2017.” It was previously set for a summer release that year and you may recall the anthology film Rogue One will be released on December 16, 2016, which means it’s Star Wars Holidays for the next few years.
My first instinct was to be disappointed to but this is likely a very, very good thing. Kit went on to explain principal photography on the next installment to the franchise will start in London next month. In a further series of tweets he reported:
Obviously the December date worked out very (very) well for them 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.
However, in his full report on THR he writes:
Disney insiders say the decision to push back the release of Star Wars comes after the blockbuster success of Star Wars: The Force Awakens over the year-end holidays. They say they have now decided to give Episode VIII the same Christmas treatment.
Both make sense to me but I’m actually really thrilled to hear rewrites may happen to better serve the new characters. Rey’s success and popularity, it seems, was somewhat of a surprise to Disney and Lucasfilm. /Film has some more info on this with a transcription from the Meet the Movie Press podcast:
I said before there were two young female roles, now I actually heard that the rewrite will make these roles smaller. They want to get to know better the characters they already have. So the new rewrite is shrinking the new roles in order to spend more time with Rey, Poe and so on.
It would be a shame to have more female characters brought into the male-dominated Star Wars universe only to barely use them but what confuses me the most is it may not have been the plan to have Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, and Oscar Isaac turn into this generation’s trio.
Of course plans can always shift as time goes on but it seems odd to focus on them so heavily in Star Wars: The Force Awakens only to branch out in the next film. I will say this, as someone currently reading [Editor’s Note: affiliate link] Greg Rucka’s Before the Awakening and desperately aching for even more information about the three characters, Disney is making the right call to make sure they get more screentime.
What do you think?
Hopefully we get a good blast of Phasma too. I can’t help but feel she is a bit sympathetic to the resistance cause with the way she capitulated so easily. Maybe she was waiting for FN to make a move. Maybe she felt it was too late to make her own. Maybe she’s the high profile mole. I just don’t want Phasma to be just the new Boba Fett flashy non face character.
That translates as more Poe, so I’m 100% on board.
*cough*
cover your mouth when you cough, GEEZ
STAHP ALL OF YOU
No.
I volunteer as tribute to help when he coughs!
Rewrites based on audience reaction? I can only hope that this becomes a real thing. (I mean, I know it won’t because Disney is a coward when it comes to queer representation but one can only hope.)