Star Wars Episodes VIII and IX release dates confirmed by Disney CEO

While there’s a bit of a wait until this December’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, we know that Disney – who acquired Lucasfilm, and the Star Wars franchise, back in 2012 – are planning on releasing a new movie based in a galaxy far, far away every year. Bog Iger, the CEO of Disney, released a report to shareholders of the company, which luckily for us, Get Your Geek On got their hands on via Star Wars Underworld, and in it, he briefly details and confirms the release dates for Star Wars films up until 2019:

‘As one of the few people allowed to visit the set during filming….and one of the fewer who’s seen most of the footage…I can assure the millions of Star Wars fans who have spent the last decade hoping for a new movie this one will be worth the wait. And it’s only the beginning of a new era of exceptional Star Wars storytelling; next year we’ll release our first standalone movie based on these characters, followed by Star Wars: Episode VIII in 2017, and we’ll finish this trilogy with Episode IX in 2019.’

Not only does Iger confirm that Episode VIII and Episode IX will definitely be released in 2017 and 2019 respectively, but he implies that the characters – or at least some of them – in Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be seen in the first standalone movie, released in 2016. With both Force Awakens and the standalone receiving December release dates, we’re sure that both Episode VIII and Episode IX will also be released in December. What other information can you gleam from Iger’s statement?