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Disney today announced the dates for its D23 Convention for next year, which in and of itself isn’t too noteworthy, until you realize they’re incredibly close to a rival convention. Next year’s D23 will take place on the weekend of July 14-16, which is just one week before San Diego Comic-Con is presumed to kick off on July 19th. While SDCC has yet to unveil its official 2017 dates, the July 19-23 seems to be the likeliest corridor, and D23’s move to mid-July marks a significant departure from its last convention, which was held August 14-16.

So what does this mean? Well D23 has been getting bigger and bigger each year since Disney acquired Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm, and Disney no doubt would rather showcase new footage and announcements from films under said banners at their own convention rather than at San Diego Comic-Con. While the month break in between last year still gave them a bit of leeway to put on events at SDCC, I’ll be curious to see if things are scaled back next year given that D23 will likely take place just a week before San Diego Comic-Con.


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Image via Marvel

Will Comic-Con-goers simply get the scraps or recycled footage, or will the Hall H stage remain where Marvel brings its showstopping moments? If Marvel and/or Lucasfilm are scaled back, you can bet Warner Bros. will ramp up its routinely impressive Hall H panels, which is where Zack Snyder first announced Batman v Superman to rampant enthusiasm three years ago.

So what’s on the chopping block on the 2017 convention landscape? Well for Marvel, July 2017 comes a few months before the release of Thor: Ragnarok and well before the 2018 releases of Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War – Part 1, and Ant-Man and the Wasp, so there’s quite a bit to be previewed on that front. As for Lucasfilm, December 2017 is the release date for Star Wars: Episode VIII and 2018 will bring us the young Han Solo spinoff movie. So yeah, Disney’s got a stacked deck. Will they share, or will 2017 mark a shift towards exclusivity? We’ll find out in due time.

And if you wanna get tickets, they go on sale July 14th at D23Expo.com

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Image via Lucasfilm

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Image via Lucasfilm