There’s been a bunch of rumors floating around lately that the trailer for Star Wars: Episode IX is set to debut during Super Bowl LIII on February 3rd, 2019. Even more specifically, people have been claiming to know that the trailer’s going to be unusually long, that it’ll feature new music by John Williams referencing the prequels, and that neither Luke nor Leia will be seen in it. You might wonder how anyone could know the contents of a trailer four months from release while the film is still in the middle of shooting, and you’d be right to wonder, as it seems to be just another bit of made-up Episode IX news.
So, we’ve got an unsubstantiated bit of gossip that, if you think about it for a moment, probably can’t be true. Gee, I wonder where this could have originated from? Well, follow the reports in newspapers and entertainment outlets back to their sources and you’ll find the trail of breadcrumbs ending – where else – at the door of Mike Zeroh. Frankly, the guy’s a one-man industry of entirely made-up Star Wars rumors and somehow manages to have a fresh ‘scoop’ on what’s going to happen in the franchise every couple of days.
My bet is that the promotional campaign for Episode IX will follow broadly the same trajectory as The Last Jedi. That means a teaser trailer sometime in April and then more extensive ones periodically throughout the year to build hype. After Solo’s failure, Disney and Lucasfilm have been keeping relatively quiet on the Star Wars front of late, cancelling the Boba Fett solo movie and beginning to build hype for a busy December 2019 through to 2020, when The Mandalorian and Episode IX should dominate both big and little screens.
In the meantime, set your calendars for December 20th, 2019, as that’s when you’ll get to see Star Wars: Episode IX in all its (probable) glory.