Disney's Bob Iger Reiterates Star Wars Episode 8 and 9 Release Dates, Teases Standalone Movies

We haven't even seen a full trailer for Star Wars: Episode 7 yet, but already people have their eyes on the future of this new era of Star Wars storytelling. After the release date for Star Wars: The Force Awakens was pushed back to its December 18th 2015 slot, Disney's Bob Iger yesterday issued a statement to shareholder's, reiterating the release dates of the subsequent entries in the new Star Wars trilogy.

"As one of the few people allowed to visit the set during filming… and one of the fewer who's seen most of the footage… I can assure the millions of 'Star Wars' fans who have spent the last decade hoping for a new movie this one will be worth the wait. And it's only the beginning of a new era of exceptional 'Star Wars' storytelling; next year we'll release our first standalone movie based on these characters, followed by 'Star Wars: Episode VIII' in 2017, and we'll finish this trilogy with 'Episode IX' in 2019."

That Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be a box-office success is a foregone conclusion, but the fate of Disney's Star Wars legacy very much hangs in the balance. Creating films that the fans want to see, while being able to attract a new generation of Star Wars lovers, will be of course be key to Disney's success and certainly Iger seems confident in his team's abilities, but could there have been a clue about Disney's plans in Iger's cheerleading statement?

While it's nice to hear that the trilogy's roadmap is still in place, what was most interesting was the way Iger discussed the standalone movies. In saying "these characters" when he referred to the standalone movies, Iger appeared to suggest that Gareth Edwards 2016 Star Wars movie would be based on a character set to appear in The Force Awakens, which would in turn rule out the chance of us seeing the much-theorized Boba Fett origin story. This may well be reading far too much into a mere statement, but with a whole host of new characters to introduce, could it be that Disney are taking a similar approach to their other new purchase, Marvel? Using the standalone movies to build background on some of the new trilogy's characters might not be want fans want, but it would certainly help to build the new Star Wars legacy that Disney so desires.

Via Get Your Geek On