Near the end of August we ran across a rumor that Disney was going to re-release the original unedited ‘Star Wars’ Trilogy on Blu-ray and a new piece of marketing seems to unofficially support that opinion. While we’ve been hearing rumors of this happening ever since Disney first picked up Lucasfilm, there has never been a confirmation or denial from Disney or Fox so there is no way to know what is really going on.

Anyone not familiar with the distribution of the original trilogy might ask why I mentioned Fox there. Well, the company owns the distribution rights to ‘A New Hope’ in perpetuity in all media formats. For the other five films that were released they own the theatrical, nontheatrical, and home video rights throughout the world until May of 2020. Unless ‘Star Wars Episode VII’ has been pushed back to late 2020 and Disney has worked out a distribution for the original ‘Star Wars A New Hope’ there wouldn’t be of a chance of that happening.

Still one can always hope that Disney and Fox have learned to play ball, even if Marvel and Fox aren’t able to find common ground on the rights to the X-men characters.

So why is there another rumor happening? Well it all boils down to a promotional video released by Disney’s Italian division that has since been pulled from YouTube.

The wording of the video didn’t specifically mention a new ‘Star Wars’ re-release as it went as follows:

“Enter Disney’s magical world, with the brand new site disney.it. All your favourite Disney characters await you, including the most engaging TV series and plenty of exclusive videos and content. Amazing apps and games and a online community to share your passions. All of this, simply from any PC, tablets or smartphones. Carry the Disney’s magic always on you.”

So what gives? What I can’t sadly show you with the video having been pulled is there were a slew of clips from the ’77 ‘Star Wars’ being shown on portable digital devices. At this time there is no way to legally purchase or rent the films on a portal so that could strongly imply that it is happening and happening soon!

Of course there was no actual direct promise in the video that you could buy or rent them and may have just been added in because we all love ‘Star Wars’ and Disney owns them now. A slip up on the marketing department? Quite possible though Disney doesn’t let that happen often.

So what do you think? Did Disney’s Italian marketing department accidentally leak that a deal has been struck between Fox and Disney? Or, more likely, did they just use some awesome ‘Star Wars’ clips to promote the rest of the video and didn’t realize how people would take it?

Directed by J.J. Abrams, ‘Star Wars: Episode VII’ premieres on December 18, 2015.

Source: Film Divider