The calendar says it’s January 18th, which means another Fanboys release date has arrived without the movie itself actually showing up in theaters. The comedy about a group of Star Wars geeks sneaking their terminally ill friend into Skywalker Ranch for an early screening of The Phantom Menace was originally slated to hit screens last summer, but has been pushed back several times amid rumors and reshoots. The latest unconfirmed reports have the project being absorbed by the Amalgamated Apatow Conglomerate for an infusion of market-tested laughs. (According to this scuttlebutt, two versions of the film will be screened for test audiences — one with the terminally ill cancer patient and one without. In the latter, the kids presumably break into the Lucas compound just for shits and grins.)
What you may not know is that Fanboys has been in the works for longer than it took Lucas and company to crank out all three of the Star Wars prequels. In this new interview with our good friends at Shuffleboil, screenwriter/slam poet/geek pride activist Ernie Cline recounts the origins of the story back in 1998. "My mother had died of cancer the year before," Cline says, "so I was somewhat fixated on human mortality at the time. One day the question occurred to me — what would I do if I knew I wasn’t going to live to see 'Episode One?' The answer seemed obvious. I’d have to drive out to California and break into Skywalker Ranch to try and find the work print. I knew right away that it was a great idea for a movie. So I sat down and wrote it, with the intention of trying to make it myself as a low budget Indie film."
Fanboys is now tentatively scheduled for release in March or April of this year. You can check out the Fanboys timeline for yourself through this press archive at Cline’s website, which also features a sampling of his geektastic spoken word material.