Star Wars: Episode VII Production Start Date Rumored For January 2014
This article is more than 2 years old
The journey to the new Star Wars sequel trilogy starts in 2014. For many reasons, the biggest movie of 2015 is undoubtedly Star Wars: Episode VII. It’s the first Star Wars movie without George Lucas in the driver’s seat, it will be the first Star Wars movie in 10 years since the release of Revenge of the Sith in 2005, and it will be the first Star Wars film since Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm back in October 2012. As director J.J. Abrams gets pre-production underway, there are some questions about when Star Wars: Episode VII will begin principal photography. There were rumors that it could start as early as this month or as late as January 2014. Well, the latest rumblings suggest it could be the latter.
According to Latino Review’s inside sources at Disney and Lucasfilm, the first day of production on “Foodles” (Star Wars: Episode VII‘s alleged code name) will be on Tuesday, January 21, 2014 at Pinewood Studios in London, England. Latino Review notes that production will start on a Tuesday rather than a Monday because of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday falling on the 20th.
Nevertheless, this means J.J. Abrams and his team will have about four months to prep the new Star Wars film, so we might start hearing solid casting news sooner rather than later.
Latino Review continues to back up Badass Digest’s rumor that Episode VII won’t be released until Christmas 2015, instead of in the month of May like all of the other movies in the Star Wars saga. Apparently, pre-production is a little behind to meet the demands of a summer 2015 release date.
It makes sense that Episode VII would be released during Christmas rather than in the summer movie-going season. Disney and Marvel had already announced that The Avengers: Age of Ultron will be released on May 1, 2015, so it would seem unlikely that they’d want to follow the Avengers sequel with Episode VII only a few weeks later. The box office for each film would most likely cannibalize each other. Plus, imagine the toy sales a Christmas release for the next Star Wars film would generate.
Cinematographer Dan Mindel was recently hired to do the photography for the new Star Wars movie. Mindel worked with Abrams in the past on Mission: Impossible III, Star Trek, and Star Trek Into Darkness. Lucasfilm also announced that Abrams and Mindel would shoot the seventh installment in the Star Wars saga on 35mm Kodak film stock 5219 instead of digitally like with the last two Star Wars movies. It’s unclear if Star Wars: Episode VII will be in 3D, but it’s most likely and it looks like it might be an up-conversion job too.
Star Wars: Episode VII will hit theaters sometime in 2015.
