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Los Angeles - Disney announced on Tuesday it had set the date of 24 May 2019 for Colin Trevorrow's Star Wars: Episode IX and is delaying the next Indiana Jones a full year.
The studio has revealed little about about the ninth instalment of the iconic space opera, except that Trevorrow wrote the script with Derek Connolly, his co-writer on Jurassic World and its forthcoming sequel.
Newcomers John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver and Oscar Isaac are all expected to return, with shooting likely start in 2018.
But Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy revealed at the "Star Wars Celebration" fan event in Orlando earlier this month that the late Carrie Fisher would not appear as Leia.
Star Wars films always opened in summer until The Force Awakens, the first of the new trilogy, and Rogue One, one of three planned spin-offs, debuted in successive mid-Decembers in 2015 and 2016, with the same slot allocated to Star Wars: The Last Jedi this year.
The new announcement confirms an experiment to return to the peak season, with the untitled Han Solo movie already announced for 25 May 2018.
Disney announced a raft of dates for its forthcoming movies going up to November 2021, many of which are simply described as "Untitled Marvel," "Untitled Pixar" or "Untitled Disney Fairy Tale (live action)."
The fifth instalment of the $2bn Indiana Jones franchise - also yet to be named - has been moved to 10 July 2020 to make way for Jon Favreau's live-action remake of The Lion King, one of the studio's most popular animated films, which moves to 19 July 2019.
Frozen 2 will hit theatres on 27 November 2019.
