Club Jade

I really didn’t want to keep chasing this dragon, but there have been several reports today that the new trailer for The Force Awakens is coming on Monday. That’s the 19th, a date which has been floating around for a while, mainly because that’s when the tickets go on sale, per many, many theaters.

First at bat this morning was Screencrush, later joined later by Making Star Wars, who added a key detail: Monday Night Football. (io9 pitched in on Thursday, saying we’ll see the poster Sunday morning.)

(Entertainment Weekly’s Anthony Breznican also hinted at Monday recently, and their own article plays it vague.)

Now, I really don’t like Monday for a trailer drop, tickets or no tickets. But when you add in Monday Night Football, (which airs on ESPN, which is owned by ABC) okay. Fine. I get it. I guess. You can’t really get more mainstream than Monday Night Football. (And hell, at least it isn’t Dancing With The Stars.)

Of course, if this does come to pass, we also expect the trailer to drop online immediately or very soon after it does on ESPN, so no one has to watch football. And it would also mean that it won’t come during the workday (for many of us) which is also nice.

But. Monday. Man.

Regardless of when and where the trailer actually happens, we are hoping for at least some official forewarning, and maybe even a significant news drop from Lucasfilm within the next few days, once the Rebels premiere gets out of the way. I’m hoping for a poster – it’s noteworthy that the MSW post also hints at a new logo. Still, all they really have to do is tell us about MNF, the marathon and tickets going on sale to get headlines through Sunday.

But for now, we wait. At least John Boyega has our back:

So connected with JJ and told him to hurry up with a trailer. Fingers crossed! That's all I can do. #injjwetrust

— John Boyega (@JohnBoyega) October 14, 2015

UPDATE: Reddit user ‘DatESPNGUY’ (via) claims this is how it’ll go down:

This Monday Disney is releasing the full trailer for The Force Awakens after the first quarter of your game. The whole night from graphics and scoreboard are Star Wars themed. The intro to the game gets an opening crawl detailing your hated rivalry.

Seriously it’s the coolest thing Monday Night Football has ever done.

Oh and one more thing.

The trailer will play on the screen at Lincoln Financial so that those in attendance don’t miss out!

We’re seeing some signs of The Force Awakens rating and runtime. Nothing is really official yet, and there are some inconsistencies, but such is the nature of internet gossip.

Following the Nerd claims they have UK details for the film, which is to-be-announced at 12A, or their equivalent to PG-13. On that note, Yakface spotted that the film is listed as PG-13 on the AMC theaters app.

Whether this is likely or they’re just using the Revenge of the Sith rating as a placeholder… We don’t know. It does seem unlikely we’ll get anything gruesome as crispy Anakin this early in the trilogy, but who knows?

Perhaps more believably, the FTN report claims the film is 136 minutes, which puts it on the long side for a Star Wars movie (only Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith are longer, if not by much) but not particularly long for huge blockbusters in general these days.

(AMC is also listing a Star Wars marathon for December 17, something we’ve heard rumblings of before.)

In other theater-based news, it seems like The Force Awakens may be playing at both Disney’s El Capitan Theatre and the Chinese Theatre across the street in Hollywood.