Star Wars Episode 9 Hit With Delay After Director Shake Up

Disney has announced that Star Wars Episode 9 will be arriving later than expected. When the company announced yesterday that JJ Abrams was being brought on to direct and write Episode 9, we probably should have assumed this would happen, as is sounds like Abrams' arrival is acting as something of a hard reset for production. In any case, we're all going to have to wait quite a bit longer for Episode 9 to release.Star Wars Episode 9's release date is now December 20, 2019, according to a tweet from the official Star Wars Twitter account. The movie was originally scheduled to launch on May 29, 2019, and even though Disney doesn't give a reason for the delay, it isn't entirely surprising. After all, the same exact thing happened to both of the other movies in the trilogy.The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi were both originally scheduled for summer launches, but were then both pushed backed when respective directors JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson needed more time to finish their projects. Though Disney was attempting to keep the dream of a Star Wars summer blockbuster alive, it eventually had to turn all three mainline films into winter releases.

Of course, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. The second part of Avengers: Infinity War is scheduled to release on May 3, 2019, and that's likely going to be a big release for Disney. It's not as if these winter launches have hurt Star Wars either, as The Force Awakens and Rogue One both made Disney an awful lot of money.

For now, the only Star Wars movie that has a chance at becoming a summer blockbuster is the still-untitled Han Solo movie, but that could face a delay too. Like Episode 9, the Han Solo film lost its directors not long ago, with Disney bringing in Ron Howard to finish the project. Until we hear otherwise, though, that Han Solo movie is scheduled to release on May 25, 2018.