Your weekend edition of The Week in Star Wars features a big update from the Han Solo spin-off movie, The Last Jedi’s box office tracking (and new images), Mark Hamill talking fan theories and much more…
We’ll kick off this week’s edition of The Week in Star Wars with news from the Han Solo movie camp, with Ron Howard announcing on Twitter that production has wrapped on the spin-off outing. Not only that, but he revealed the official title is now Solo: A Star Wars Story. No real surprises there…
…Moving over to Star Wars: The Last Jedi now, and some new promo art was released which offered a first look at the space horses, and a new image of Laura Dern’s Admiral Holdo was also released…
…Following the latest trailer for The Last Jedi, several fans have started theories about whether or not Luke Skywalker has turned to the Dark Side. While many have speculated this in the past, some clever folks have spotted every Star Wars poster has the main villain is presented the same way – looking in the back of the image – which someone pointed out to Mark Hamill on Twitter. The Jedi Master himself responded by saying, “NEWS FLASH for all you “Villains Looming at the Back of Posters! theorists: Luke was ALWAYS the villain! (from a certain point of view).” Guess we’ll find out in December…
…A new report from The Wrap has said that The Last Jedi is tracking a domestic opening weekend of $215 million, which would put it ahead of the $208.8 million debut of 2016’s Jurassic World for the second biggest bow of all time. Top spot is currently held by its predecessor Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which pulled in $247.9 million across its opening weekend on its way to becoming the biggest North American release of all time with $936.6 million…
…Looking ahead to Star Wars: Episode IX, and director J.J. Abrams has spoken about where he wants to take the franchise in its ninth instalment. Appearing on BBC with composer Michael Giacchino Abrams said, “I feel like we need to approach this with the same excitement that we had when we were kids, loving what these movies were. And at the same time, we have to take them places that they haven’t gone, and that’s sort of our responsibility. It’s a strange thing – Michael’s worked on things like Planet of the Apes and Star Trek and Star Wars, and these are the things of dreams. Yet we can’t just revel in that; we have to go elsewhere…”
…Flickering Myth’s editor-in-chief Gary Collinson reviews Hasbro’s Star Wars: Forces of Destiny Rey of Jakku & BB-8 Adventure and Princess Leia Organa & Wicket the Ewok Endor Adventure dolls…
…EA Games released a brand new trailer for Star Wars Battlefront II which puts the focus on the single-player campaign, and new images were also released…
…In slightly sadder news, EA announced this week they were shutting down Visceral Games studio – which means the Star Wars game they were developing is now being retooled and likely won’t be released as planned in 2019. “In its current form, [the game] was shaping up to be a story-based, linear adventure game,” writes Patrick Söderlund, Executive Vice President of Electronic Arts in a blog post. “Throughout the development process, we have been testing the game concept with players, listening to the feedback about what and how they want to play, and closely tracking fundamental shifts in the marketplace. It has become clear that to deliver an experience that players will want to come back to and enjoy for a long time to come, we needed to pivot the design.” Fingers crossed Star Wars Battlefront II can keep us at bay until then…
…Over to Star Wars Rebels now and you can watch the Rebels Recon for “Heroes of Mandalore” here and read Chris Cooper’s review here, and check out the return of Saw Gerrera in images from In The Name of the Rebellion here…
…Ricky Church reviews Star Wars: The Last Jedi: Captain Phasma #4, which you can read here…
…And finally, here are your comic book previews for the week. First up is Star Wars: The Last Jedi – DJ #1, which will explore Benicio Del Toro’s character Star Wars The Last Jedi: When STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI takes theaters in FORCE (get it?) this December, Star Wars fans will get a peek into some new dark corners of the Galaxy Far Away… and out of one of those corners scuttles DJ, the mysterious character played by Benecio Del Toro! Who is this mystery man, and what put him in the path of our Resistance heroes? Join Ben Acker & Ben Blacker (Star Wars Join the Resistance, Star Wars: The Last Jedi – The Storms of Crait) and Kev Walker (Star Wars: Doctor Aphra, Darkhawk) as they reveal a day in DJ’s life just before his appearance in the film! And here’s the preview for Star Wars: Jedi of the Republic – Mace Windu #3: Mace and his squad’s first mission of the newly begun Clone Wars continues! What do the Separatists want with the planet of Hissrich? Can Mace overcome mercenary droid AD-W4 to stop them?
That’s all for this week – may the Force be with you.
Luke Owen is the Deputy Editor of Flickering Myth, a presenter for WrestleTalk, and the author of Lights, Camera, GAME OVER!: How Video Game Movies Get Made. You can follow him on Twitter @ThisisLukeOwen.
