Star Wars fans eager to unsheathe their lightsabers for the premiere
of Fanboys, a film about a group of wannabe Jedis, will have to put the Force on hold.
The Weinstein Company has delayed
Fanboys from its scheduled release of late November to February 2009.
The film has already ignited ire among
Star Wars fans, who
organized boycotts and protests earlier this year after the studio rewrote and shot a key component of the film, penned by amateur screenwriter and ultimate
Star Wars geek Ernie Cline (pictured). Cline's version centered around a motley crew of friends circa 1998, attempting to break into the Skywalker Ranch and smuggle out a rough cut of
The Phantom Menace to the bedside of their terminally ill buddy.
After legions of
Star Wars fans took to the internets and successfully lobbied for the film to be released with its original story line intact, the debut was set for September 2008 before getting pushed back to November.
The film, which features cameos by Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, George Lucas and William Shatner among others, is the stuff geek dreams are made of -- which makes the repeated postponements especially embittering for galaxy groupies eager to see the finished product.
But
Fanboys isn't the only Weinstein film suffering a delay. The studio's entire catalog -- with the exception of
Zack and Miri Make a Porno and
The Reader -- is getting reshuffled for a 2009 release, according to
/Film.
Photo: Wired/Dan Winters
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