Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Scene to Debut During Fortnite Event

Fortnite will host a special screening of a new clip from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. 

According to in-game posters spread throughout Fortnite‘s map, this premiere will begin at Risky Reels drive-in theater at 1:30 pm EST on December 14th. The actual clip apparently won’t be screened until about 30 minutes later, so you should have plenty of time to find a seat and settle in. Well…assuming the servers hold. It’s also been suggested that director J.J. Abrams will make a cameo in some way. 

The Fortnite team hasn’t exactly shied away from using their game as an ad platform. Along with the usual array of in-game events featuring everything from Avengers characters and Batman to Pennywise and Borderlands, we’ve seen larger scale Fortnite in-game promotions similar to this upcoming screening. The most notable of those promotions was a concert from Marshmello. According to the pre-teens we had to make brief conversation with over the holidays during the family gathering, he’s a DJ or something. 

It’s likely that this Star Wars screening will follow the same “rules” as the Marshmello concert. That is to say that combat will likely not be allowed in the screening area. That said, it is kind of funny to think about Fortnite players battling each other in the drive-in to be the last one standing to get to see the clip. Then again, Fortnite has struggled in the past with supporting the number of players that turn out to witness such events, so it’s possible that not everyone who shows up to see the footage will be able to do so. 

Fortnite recently celebrated Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order with the release of a Stormtrooper skin and other goodies, but this is obviously a much bigger deal that will likely draw the attention of thousands of players and millions of streaming viewers. 

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is still set to debut in full in theaters on December 20, 2019.

Matthew Byrd is a staff writer for Den of Geek. He spends most of his days trying to pitch deep-dive analytical pieces about Killer Klowns From Outer Space to an increasingly perturbed series of editors. You can read more of his work here or find him on Twitter at @SilverTuna014.