In The Hollywood Reporter’s article on Star Wars at the D23 Expo, they have “insiders” claiming that “some Star Wars actors – presumably familiar faces – may appear at D23 to confirm their involvement in Episode VII. (via)
Disney announced yesterday that Star Wars would be featured at the Expo.
Of course, several of the rumored alumni will be appearing at Celebration Europe. Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Anthony Daniels, plus Lucasfilm head honcho Kathleen Kennedy, will all be in Germany, so any confirmations or announcements may come out of that convention first. But, either way, it seems likely that D23 will see some Episode VII action as well.
As much as it pains me to say this, but I guess it might actually make more sense to do the big confirmation at either Comic Con or D23. Sure, the Celebration is a big thing for Star Wars fans, but given Disney’s latest box office bomb (and an upcoming one thanks to “Planes”), they might want to play the Star Wars card themselves to cater either to a somewhat more diverse audience at SDCC or to their own crowd at D23.
I think the key factor here is when the contracts actually get signed. But with the internet, it really doesn’t matter where or when the announcement happens.
The main problem with SDCC is, because the Big 3 are all-but-confirmed, it would be easy for the news to get lost in the shuffle of what is, basically, Geek News Christmas. Doing it the week after at CE means it won’t, because anyone else who has big popcorn flick news is going be announcing at SDCC. Star Wars is one of the few franchises actually guaranteed headlines whenever.
Of course, they could always do Hamill/Fisher at CE and save Ford for D23, if the contracts work out that way. But even if it’s announced by then, anyone being on stage and saying stuff at D23 will still make headlines.
I bet the Ender’s Game folks are chomping at the bit for the Ford announcement right now, though. Having your big sci-fi movie tangentially mentioned in hundreds of Star Wars stories has got to be better publicity than OSC’s bigotry, which is what’s dominating it right now.