Sorry all you Star Wars fans, you're going to have to wait a little bit longer for Episode VIII.
After The Force Awakens' major triumph last year during the holiday season, Disney released a statement today saying they've decided to push back the Episode VIII's release from May 26, 2017 to Dec. 15, 2017.
"The move follows the extraordinary success of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which was the first Star Wars movie to premiere in December," the statement reads. "In the popular holiday movie-going corridor, it smashed numerous records, including biggest domestic and global debuts of all time as well as the biggest domestic second and third weekends, en route to becoming the highest grossing domestic release of all time with over $861M and the third biggest global release ever with $1.887B."
Though fans won't be too excited about this, it's definitely a sensible decision. The push back will give director Rian Johnson a longer time frame to work on the film. Not to mention, Disney will stick to releasing the first Star Wars spin-off, Rogue One, on Dec. 16 of this year, still giving fans one Star Wars release per year.
In addition to the date shuffle, Disney has decided to move the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dean Men Tell No Tales up from the July 7, 2017 release date to the May 26, 2017 in place of Episode VIII.