We have a new Star Wars movie coming out in just a few weeks but its story is looking back on the history of the Star Wars universe and what many fans are waiting for is to see what happens next. However, we stand here today with no idea when we'll get our first look at Star Wars: Episode VIII. You might be inclined to believe the first trailer could be part of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, but a new report claims that we won't see Rey and Finn again until sometime in early 2017.
A new report in the International Business Times, based on a rumor from YouTuber Mike Zeroh says that the first trailer is expected to run at some point in the first quarter of 2017. On the one hand, this seems late. The first teaser trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens was actually released two years ago today. Over a full year before the film was to be seen in theaters. It wouldn't be surprising for a trailer to drop this early for Star Wars: Episode VIII. Especially, since, at this point, the movie doesn't even have a full title. We got the title of The Force Awakens in early November of 2014 so we're nearly a month behind that schedule at this point. Waiting to drop the title with the trailer would be a huge way to make the announcement, but waiting until 2017 seems an odd decision when you have a perfectly good movie coming out that will attract your target audience.
On the other hand, we didn't see the first trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story until April of this year, the second quarter of the year, so a Q1 trailer for Star Wars: Episode VIII would be early compared to that. It's unlikely that Disney is in a rush to get a trailer out, it's not like the buzz behind Star Wars will die out if no trailer comes out for a few months. It's even possible that the plan to delay the trailer is specifically to schedule that buzz appropriately. If they do publish a trailer along with Rogue One it's possible that more people will end up talking about it than the movie it was attached to. That's a net loss for Lucasfilm when it comes to hype.
If there's a major problem with the idea that the trailer could see a quarter one 2017 release, it's that Disney only has one film coming out in that window, Beauty and the Beast in March. While trailers aren't exclusively attached to movies from the same studio, that is quite often where they start and while there would clearly be some crossover between the two franchises, it's not exactly the same audience.
Do you think we'll see a Star Wars: Episode VIII trailer sometime in the next month, or could we be as much as four months away from our first look? Give us your theory in the comments below.
