After a break, the Star Wars franchise will make the jump back to lightspeed in 2022.
Disney on Tuesday announced release dates for three new Star Wars films, which will hit theaters in December 2022, December 2024, and December 2026, writes The Hollywood Reporter.
After putting out a Star Wars movie every year since 2015, Disney said it would press pause on the film series after 2019's Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. This seemed to be a result of the box office disappointment of Solo: A Star Wars Story, which hit theaters just five months after Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Disney CEO Bob Iger said in September that going forward, the studio would be "a little bit more careful about volume and timing."
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Based on the calendar announced on Tuesday, it appears this hiatus will last three years, with no Star Wars film planned for 2020 or 2021. This should provide more finality to The Rise of Skywalker, which Lucasfilm has said is the end of the main "Skywalker saga." Until then, Disney will be releasing Star Wars content on its streaming service, Disney+, including a live-action series called The Mandalorian.
Disney had previously announced a trilogy of Star Wars films from The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson, as well as a series of films from Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. It's not clear which of these films will be released when.
Disney on Tuesday also detailed its plans for Avatar, which it took over from Fox. The first sequel, Avatar 2, will be released in December 2021. From there, Disney plans to rotate December releases between Avatar and Star Wars. Avatar 3 will hit theaters in December 2023, while Avatar 4 will arrive in 2025 and Avatar 5 is slated for December 2027. Then again, based on how many times these films have been delayed — Avatar 2 was originally planned for December 2014 — it'd probably be best not to get too attached to these release dates just yet.
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