Confirmations

Both AICN & Yahoo have confirmed that the Wing Commander Movie will be preceeded by the Star Wars trailer. Here's Yahoo's report...

New "Episode I" Trailer Due March 12

Call it a really nice hors d'oeuvre for all of us Star Wars weenies out there whose lives until the May 21 prequel premiere have been reduced to waiting...and rabidly consuming every little scrap George Lucas throws our way.

The new Episode I: The Phantom Menace trailer will premiere March 12, running exclusively in front of 20th Century Fox's space-battle-in-the-27th-century, Wing Commander, a well-placed source tells E! News Daily.

As far as official confirmation goes, LucasFilm will only say that no release date for the trailer has been announced yet. Ditto for official Fox comment.

Still, the coupling of the next trailer--purported to reveal more plot points and characters, including an appearance from Episode I's Phantom Menace himself, Darth Sidious--with the like-genred Wing Commander would seem to make sense, given Wing Commander's up-until-now scant promotion and the previous Star Wars trailer's ability to draw crowds to virtually any film. (When it debuted last November, it had people lining up to see the box-office dud Meet Joe Black.)

"I think running the two together is a teriffic idea," says Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box-office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations, who thinks that the trailer negates the need for Fox to blow the budget marketing Wing Commander. "Why would you want to spend $30 million to market a $30 million movie?"

Why indeed, when you have the drawing power of a Star Wars trailer.

In fact, a prequel trailer represents a major event these days, especially when you consider that the following is being called news by the official Star Wars site (www.starwars.com): Episode I art department coordinator Blake Tucker has announced that subtitles in the film (used to translate "Huttese") will use the font ITC Franklin Gothic Demi Bold, 69 point with -30 tracking, a match to the titles used in the original Star Wars Trilogy.

Just so you know.

As for the film you may or may not stick around for, Wing Commander is based on the popular, eponymous video game that features erstwhile Luke, Mark Hamill. The film version stars Freddie Prinze Jr., Matthew Lillard and Saffron Burrows

STAR WARS EPISODE ONE Trailer Two will be with WING COMMANDER

Alrighty folks, I finally heard from my bug on the bottom of Bill Mechanic's desk, and heard that on the weekend of the 12, 13 and 14... that the guaranteed place to see the 2nd trailer for STAR WARS EPISODE ONE... well... It'll be attached to WING COMMANDER the movie. After that weekend it's likely to be distributed to all types of films, and as far as I know it won't be with CORRUPTOR... unless the theater cuts it off the print of WING COMMANDER and sticks it on CORRUPTOR. According to my little electronic monitoring device tuned into Mr Mechanic... if you wanna see it... go see WING COMMANDER. I guess we can expect a firm announcement from the STARWARS.COM site any day now as... well... it's getting close to the wire.

Yeah... I know you folks in TALK BACK are saying "oooooooollld neeewwws" but this is no longer speculation, but straight from the top. I wasn't posting this bit until I had it absolutely confirmed, as I am sick and tired of speculation as to when the various trailers will hit. It was something like 6 different films the first time... But this is one for the bank...