Disney sets summer 2019 release for ‘Star Wars IX’
LOS ANGELES: Disney announced on Tuesday it had set the date of May 24, 2019 for Colin Trevorrow’s “Star Wars: Episode IX” and is delaying the next “Indiana Jones” a full year.
The studio has revealed little about about the ninth instalment of the iconic space opera, except that Trevorrow wrote the script with Derek Connolly, his cowriter on “Jurassic World” and its forthcoming sequel.
Newcomers John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver and Oscar Isaac are all expected to return, with shooting likely to start in 2018.
But Lucasfi lm boss Kathleen Kennedy revealed at the “Star Wars Celebration” fan event in Orlando earlier this month that the late Carrie Fisher would not appear as Leia.
“Star Wars” fi lms always opened in summer until “The Force Awakens,” the fi rst of the new trilogy, and “Rogue One,” one of three planned spin- offs, debuted in successive midDecembers in 2015 and 2016, with the same slot allocated to “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” this year.
The new announcement confi rms an experiment to return to the peak season, with the untitled “Han Solo” movie already announced for May 25, 2018.
Disney announced a raft of dates for its forthcoming movies going up to November 2021, many of which are simply described as “Untitled Marvel,” “Untitled Pixar” or “Untitled Disney Fairy Tale ( live action).”
The fi fth instalment of the US$ 2 billion “Indiana Jones” franchise — also yet to be named — has been moved to July 10, 2020 to make way for Jon Favreau’s live- action remake of “The Lion King,” one of the studio’s most popular animated fi lms, which moves to July 19, 2019.
“Frozen 2” will hit theatres on Nov 27 2019. — AFP