Star Wars Rebels to Premiere this Summer?

Since the first announcement that a new Star Wars animated series was in production, we have been told that the series would launch this coming Fall with a 1-hour special that would then be followed by weekly half-hour episodes.

Well, according to a statement by Disney CEO Bob Iger in the company’s 2013 shareholder’s report, it appears the 1-hour special/movie may be comming sooner than we expected. When speaking about Disney’s plans for Star Wars in the coming year, Iger revealed the following information:

“While the world eagerly awaits Episode VII to open in theaters, we’re introducing Star Wars Rebels to television audiences this summer with a movie and a series of shorts on Disney Channel, followed by a continuing series on Disney XD.”

So is the Star Wars Rebels premiere actually coming to television everywhere this Summer instead of the Fall like previously announced, or is this just a bit of mis-information? Iger also references “a series of shorts”. This is the first mention of content outside of the previously announed premiere and weekly episodes. Hopefully in the near future Disney or Lucasfilm will provide more information on what these shorts could be.

You can check out the entire 2013 shareholder report HERE.