With a mere 675 days to go until Star Wars: Episode VII hits theaters, the time to be focused on casting rumors is growing shorter as production inches ever closer. Today, we’ve got a better idea of just how far, far away that date is, as there’s now word that in about three months shooting will begin for J.J. Abrams’ take on George Lucas’ space universe.
Hitfix is saying that multiple sources have confirmed that shooting for Episode VII will last from the middle of May through September of 2014. Abrams had previously mentioned May as a possibility, but nothing was confirmed, or at least confirmed as much as these dates supposedly are now.
May-September definitely makes sense. Ending in September gives Abrams a little over a year for post-production, which is about right for this sort of film. Starting in May also gives them three months to wrap up the rest of the casting decisions, though these unnamed sources also say that most principle casting decisions have been made, which was a fairly safe assumption anyway. Abrams is known for keeping those sort of decisions under very tight wraps, so I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the rumors we’re hearing were set in stone quite some time ago.
Unfortunately, beyond these shooting dates, rumors are just about all we have to go off of at this point. If you look through any list of Star Wars news, it’ll be filled with a never-ending series of names who are possibly in consideration for the trilogy, each one as likely as the last. At least these dates give us a general timeline of when we’ll be able to hear more about casting, but sadly, even that won’t make December 2015 come any faster.
Star Wars: Episode VII is scheduled to hit theaters December 18th, 2015.
