Star Wars defined the summer blockbuster for several generations. The original trilogy and the prequels all released during the summer months, making the most out of school being out and the heat of the day driving people into a nice, air-conditioned movie theater for a few hours. Star Wars and the summer went hand in hand-- until Disney changed things up by giving The Force Awakens a December 18 release date.

At the time the plan wasn't to shift Star Wars from a summer franchise to a winter one, that's just how the scheduling worked out and Disney announced a May 26, 2017 release for Star Wars: Episode VIII. That plan's gone, though, and it's now officially hitting theaters on December 15, 2017, over six months later than previously expected.

Sorry Star Wars fans, you're going to have to wait longer to see the next movie in the new trilogy. But, on the plus side, this means director Rian Johnson has an extra couple of months to perfect the movie.

Extra time to work on the movie surely isn't the reason behind the move, though. The Force Awakens became the highest grossing domestic release ever in record decimating time during its December release. And not only did it dominate the box office, but Star Wars merchandise dominated every retailer's shelf space ahead of the holidays. Since the formula worked flawlessly, Disney understandably is going to try to do it all over again.

What's most interesting about this news, however, is that means Star Wars has now issued a challenge to Avatar 2, which is currently set to come out just 10 days later on December 25, 2017. Can the two sci-fi juggernauts exist at the box office at the same time? Time will tell, but don't be surprised if the release date of Avatar 2 ends up shifting. After all, Episode VIII is set to start filming in a month, whereas Avatar 2 still hasn't set a public start date. It may not even be ready for December 25, 2017.

Episode VIII isn't the only big Disney movie changing dates, either. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Mean Tell No Tales, starring Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Orlando Bloom and Javier Bardem, is now advancing up from July and into the May 26, 2017 date vacated by Star Wars. 

But since giant movies like Star Wars and Pirates of the Caribbean can't move around without making waves for other studios, Sony has now shifted its new, untitled Spider-Man movie up a few weeks to July 7, 2017 and the Jumanji remake is taking its old date of July 28, 2017.

That leaves one last, big release-date question: Will Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One move off of its planned December 15, 2017 release and leave that date entirely to Star Wars? Again, time will tell, but one thing is clear: do not bet against Star Wars.