When ‘Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace 3D’ was released this past winter, the plan on LucasFilm’s behalf was to release a 3D-converted ‘Star Wars’ film annually, at approximately the same time each year. That plan gets tossed into Sarlacc’s belly as of today: LucasFilm has announced, via press release, that ‘Attack of the Clones’ and ‘Revenge of the Sith’ will be coming out within a month of each other next fall.

‘Attack of the Clones’ will be released first (would be weird otherwise), on September 20, 2013. ‘Revenge of the Sith’ follows a mere few weeks later, on October 11.  Looking at the 3rd Quarter schedule for next year, neither film faces direct competition, although Disney will be doing a little re-releasing and post-converting of its own with ‘The Little Mermaid 3D’, which comes out one week before ‘Clones’.

It’s a curious strategy, to be sure. Do LucasFilm and distributor 20th Century Fox want to create more of an event scenario for fanboys by thrusting two 3D ‘Star Wars’ films toward their eyeballs back-to-back? Or is it more of a shrewd business tactic; Fox will almost certainly save some coin with a two-for-one advertising campaign (they can just jam both titles into one trailer/commercial), as opposed to dipping into the marketing purse for two entirely separate releases.

Whatever the reasoning, one thing is for certain: there’s going to be a whole lot of Hayden Christensen in your face next autumn. Are you prepared to shell out for two post-converted prequels twice in the span of a few weeks?

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