Rumor: The ‘Han Solo’ Spinoff Might Be Headed to a New Holiday Release Date
The shift from summer to Christmas for The Force Awakens came as a bit of a shock to Star Wars fans, who were so used to seeing the earlier installments of the first two trilogies hit theaters in the warmer months. Summer releases for Star Wars movies had become something of an unspoken tradition, so the holiday release had some feeling a little perturbed. Disney and Lucasfilm sure weren’t, though, as The Force Awakens raked in that holiday box office cash, topping every Star Wars movie before it in less than twelve parsecs. Now, a rumor has surfaced that the Han Solo spinoff, which has so far been scheduled for May 2018, might get bumped forward to December.
The site MakingStarWars, which is usually pretty reliable when it comes to these things, claims that they’ve heard of a more Christmassy release date from an informant. The new possible release date is December 13, 2018. For comparison, the current one is still listed as May 25, 2018. MakingStarWars notes that this release date has only occurred on one piece of promotional press release material, while the press releases for new cast member announcements all state that the movie “is set for a release in 2018.”
Let’s just reiterate that this is still very much a rumor for now, and we could still very well see the Han Solo movie open in a more traditional summer release. But it wouldn’t be odd for Lucasfilm to bump it forward, since both The Force Awakens and Rogue One have done miles better in their December slots than any other Star Wars movie has.