In 1977, it was simply Star Wars.
There was no Episode IV in the title audiences saw on opening day, no sprawling franchise map to navigate, no streaming series, no convention ecosystem and certainly no expectation that people would still be gathering in theaters half a century later to cheer when a Star Destroyer filled the screen.
On May 25, 2027, the movie that would later become Star Wars: A New Hope turns 50.
Lucasfilm is treating that anniversary as a yearlong celebration, and New Jersey is already becoming part of it in several very different ways. The original film is returning to theaters in a newly restored presentation. The New Jersey Symphony is taking A New Hope on a four-city concert run during the week of the actual anniversary.
Kevin Smith, whose own career is inseparable from New Jersey, is writing the first official Star Wars/Marvel universe crossover. And three days after the anniversary itself, a brand-new Star Wars theatrical adventure arrives on Memorial Day weekend.
Major sports teams, minor-league ballparks, libraries, comic conventions, fan groups and community organizations that regularly hold Star Wars nights have not yet filled out most of their 2027 calendars. So what follows is not a prediction list dressed up as news.
It is the confirmed New Jersey picture as it exists now, plus a clearly marked watch list for the places that have established Star Wars traditions but have not announced anniversary plans yet.
There is already plenty to circle on the calendar.
The Star Wars 50th Calendar for New Jersey Fans, So Far
| Date | Where | What | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan. 13, 2027 | Statewide / comic shops | Star Wars/Marvel: Hope Assembles #1 | Official 50th-anniversary crossover written by New Jersey’s Kevin Smith. |
| Feb. 19, 2027 | NJ theaters, locations TBA | Star Wars (1977) theatrical rerelease | Newly restored version of the original theatrical release returns for a limited run. |
| May 20, 2027 • 7 PM | Morristown | A New Hope in Concert, Mayo Performing Arts Center | New Jersey Symphony performs John Williams’ score live to the complete film. |
| May 21, 2027 • 7:30 PM | Red Bank | A New Hope in Concert, Count Basie Center | Second stop in the four-city 50th-anniversary concert run. |
| May 22, 2027 • 7:30 PM | Newark | A New Hope in Concert, NJPAC | Includes a 6:30 PM Instrument Discovery Zone before the performance. |
| May 23, 2027 • 2 PM | New Brunswick | A New Hope in Concert, State Theatre New Jersey | Final NJ Symphony performance, two days before the actual anniversary. |
| May 25, 2027 | Everywhere | 50th anniversary of Star Wars | Fifty years since the original film opened on May 25, 1977. |
| May 28, 2027 | NJ theaters, locations TBA | Star Wars: Starfighter | New standalone Star Wars film opens on the 50th-anniversary weekend. |
The Centerpiece: A New Hope With the New Jersey Symphony
The most substantial New Jersey-specific celebration announced so far is not one night. It is a four-city run that effectively turns the week before the anniversary into a statewide Star Wars concert tour.
From May 20 through May 23, the New Jersey Symphony will perform John Williams’ Oscar-winning score to Star Wars: A New Hope live while the complete film plays overhead. Nicholas Hersh conducts the performances, which travel from Morristown to Red Bank to Newark and finally New Brunswick.
The timing is almost perfect. The final performance lands on Sunday, May 23, two days before the 50th anniversary of the original May 25, 1977 release.
For anyone who has seen one of the New Jersey Symphony’s live-to-film programs, the attraction is obvious. A movie score that has lived inside speakers for decades suddenly becomes physical. The brass has weight. The percussion has impact. The strings are not simply part of the soundtrack; they are musicians sitting in the room, landing every cue against a film that never stops to wait for them.
And few scores are more suited to that treatment than A New Hope. Williams’ music did not merely decorate George Lucas’ film. It gave the galaxy scale, made Darth Vader more ominous, turned the binary sunset into myth and helped sell audiences on the idea that this strange collection of droids, desert farmers, smugglers and space stations belonged to something much larger than one movie.
The New Jersey run begins Thursday, May 20 at 7 p.m. at Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown. It continues Friday, May 21 at 7:30 p.m. at the Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, Saturday, May 22 at 7:30 p.m. at NJPAC in Newark, and Sunday, May 23 at 2 p.m. at State Theatre New Jersey in New Brunswick.
The Newark performance adds another family-friendly piece to the celebration. At 6:30 p.m., before the May 22 concert at NJPAC, New Jersey Symphony musicians will host an Instrument Discovery Zone in the lobby, giving patrons a chance to try instruments themselves before hearing the orchestra unleash one of the most famous film scores ever written.
This is not a generic “music of Star Wars” program. It is the film, complete, with the score performed live. Fifty years after audiences first heard that opening fanfare in a movie theater, New Jersey gets four chances to hear it generated by an orchestra in real time.
February 19: The 1977 Star Wars Returns to Movie Theaters
Lucasfilm has announced that on February 19, 2027, a newly restored version of the original 1977 theatrical release of Star Wars will return to cinemas for a limited run as part of the yearlong 50th-anniversary celebration.
That wording matters. The movie now universally known as A New Hope has been revised and reissued repeatedly over the decades. For the 50th, Lucasfilm is specifically promoting the return of the classic 1977 theatrical release in a new restoration, a rare chance for audiences to encounter the movie as the cultural event it originally was rather than simply selecting it from a streaming menu.
Lucasfilm has said the film will play in theaters broadly, with select IMAX 70mm presentations also planned. As of this writing, individual New Jersey theaters have not yet been announced, so there is no honest statewide theater list to publish yet. That is one of the biggest pieces of this guide that should become clearer as February approaches.
For New Jersey fans, though, the date is already worth blocking off. The restored theatrical return is the first major screen event of the anniversary year, and it happens months before the birthday itself.
New Jersey Has a Hand in the Official Anniversary Story: Kevin Smith’s Hope Assembles
Lucasfilm and Marvel are launching Star Wars/Marvel: Hope Assembles, a five-issue limited series that will bring the Star Wars and Marvel universes together in a full crossover for the first time. It is written by Kevin Smith with art by David Marquez, and the first issue goes on sale January 13, 2027.
That makes Smith, filmmaker, comic-book writer and one of New Jersey pop culture’s most recognizable hometown voices, part of the official kickoff to the anniversary year.
The concept is appropriately enormous. A reality-shattering event causes the story of A New Hope to unfold inside Marvel’s Earth-616 continuity, putting Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo and Chewbacca alongside the Avengers, Spider-Man and other Marvel heroes while Darth Vader and the Empire find themselves sharing space with Doctor Doom and Marvel’s villains.
There is a nice historical loop underneath the gimmick. Marvel published Star Wars comics in 1977, giving fans more of the galaxy almost from the moment the movie arrived. Fifty years later, the anniversary series is not simply another Star Wars comic published by Marvel, it is finally smashing the two fictional universes together.
Smith has said he grew up subscribing to Marvel’s Star Wars comics and used to wish characters like Spider-Man or Doctor Doom could cross into the saga. Half a century after the first film, he gets to write exactly that story.
No New Jersey launch signing or Secret Stash anniversary event has been announced yet, so it would be premature to put one on the calendar. But the comic itself is absolutely part of the state’s 50th-anniversary story: a New Jersey filmmaker is writing one of Lucasfilm’s official marquee projects for the year.
May 25: The Actual 50th Anniversary
The date at the center of everything is Tuesday, May 25, 2027.
That marks 50 years since Star Wars opened in theaters on May 25, 1977 and started turning moviegoing into something new. By the time New Jersey reaches the anniversary itself, fans will already have had the restored theatrical rerelease, the launch of Hope Assembles and four nights of A New Hope performed by the New Jersey Symphony.
What is striking is that there is still no single major New Jersey event announced for May 25 itself. That empty date may not stay empty for long. Libraries, theaters, comic shops, municipalities and fan organizations often publish spring schedules much closer to the season. For now, however, the honest entry on the calendar is simply the anniversary itself, with more local programming likely to surface as 2027 gets closer.
May 28: Star Wars: Starfighter Opens on Anniversary Weekend
Star Wars: Starfighter arrives in theaters May 28, 2027, Memorial Day weekend. Directed by Shawn Levy, the standalone film stars Ryan Gosling as Kade Auberon, with a cast that also includes Flynn Gray, Matt Smith, Mia Goth, Aaron Pierre, Jamael Westman, Daniel Ings and Amy Adams.
Lucasfilm describes the film as an all-new adventure centered on a cynical rogue forced to confront his mysterious past, sending him into a dangerous journey across the galaxy. The story is set in a previously unexplored period and is not being positioned as another chapter of the Skywalker Saga.
The release date is no accident. Starfighter opens on the weekend of the original film’s 50th anniversary, giving the celebration a clean transition from looking backward at the movie that started everything to putting a new Star Wars story on theater screens.
As with the February rerelease, individual New Jersey theater showtimes are far too early to list. But unlike a touring event, this one should eventually become a truly statewide celebration simply because it will reach multiplexes from North Jersey to the Shore and South Jersey once tickets go on sale.
A Major Bonus Just Across the River: Star Wars: The Experience in Philadelphia
This one is technically outside New Jersey, but for Garden State fans it is too significant, and too close, to leave out.
Star Wars: The Experience, A Journey Through the Galaxy opens February 13, 2027 at The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia as the world premiere of what Lucasfilm calls its largest and most comprehensive behind-the-scenes traveling Star Wars exhibition to date.
The exhibition is part of the official 50th-anniversary celebration and will include more than 70 artifacts, with many being publicly displayed for the first time. Lucasfilm has already highlighted Darth Vader’s armor, Darth Maul’s lightsaber hilt, Grogu, R2-D2 and C-3PO among the material fans will be able to see up close.
The Franklin Institute launch begins a planned five-year North American tour. For South Jersey in particular, the world premiere is practically a local event, and for the rest of the state it is an easy enough regional trip to deserve a place on any serious 2027 Star Wars calendar.
The National Celebration Will Be Huge, and That Matters for New Jersey
Star Wars Celebration Los Angeles runs April 1–4, 2027 and is explicitly built around the 50th anniversary. Lucasfilm has already unveiled anniversary merchandise, anniversary-themed key art and a growing guest roster. The event itself is sold out.
That matters in New Jersey not because everyone is flying to Los Angeles, but because the franchise is clearly treating the 50th as a full-year campaign rather than a single May weekend. The theatrical rerelease, museum exhibition, comic crossover, live concerts and new movie are not isolated coincidences; they are pieces of the same anniversary machine.
What New Jersey Star Wars Traditions Have Not Announced 2027 Plans Yet
New Jersey already has a healthy ecosystem of recurring Star Wars events that have nothing to do with a 50th anniversary. In 2026 alone, the New Jersey Devils held a Star Wars Night at Prudential Center; the Jersey Shore BlueClaws staged their annual Star Wars Night in ShoreTown; the Somerset Patriots brought costumed characters to Bridgewater for their own Star Wars Night; and the Trenton Thunder held a Star Wars Night as part of their summer promotional schedule.
Those events matter because they show the infrastructure is already here: teams know the theme works, fan costuming groups already support appearances, and audiences routinely show up for Star Wars nights.
But none of those organizations has announced a 2027 50th-anniversary Star Wars event yet. The Devils have already published their 2026–27 theme-night schedule and Star Wars is not currently on it. The baseball clubs generally announce summer promotions later, so their 2027 calendars are not mature enough to treat anything as confirmed.
The same rule applies to libraries, municipalities, comic shops and fan conventions. New Jersey has plenty of organizations that have hosted May the Fourth programs, cosplay events, character appearances and Star Wars panels before, but a past tradition is not the same thing as a 2027 announcement.
That distinction is important because this anniversary is going to generate a lot of event pages, reposts and recycled listings over the next several months. A useful statewide guide should grow with real announcements rather than fill gaps with assumptions.
So How Big Could Star Wars at 50 Become in New Jersey?
The confirmed list is already unusually strong for an anniversary that is still more than seven months away.
There is a restored version of the 1977 theatrical release returning to cinemas. There is a four-city New Jersey Symphony run built specifically around the 50th. There is a locally connected official Marvel crossover written by Kevin Smith. There is a brand-new movie opening three days after the anniversary. And just across the Delaware River, one of the largest Star Wars exhibitions ever assembled is making its world premiere.
That is before the normal New Jersey machinery of libraries, ballparks, comic shops, conventions and community events has really started publishing its 2027 plans.
For a franchise that has spent five decades turning moviegoing into fandom, fandom into community and community into ritual, that feels appropriate. Star Wars has never really been just a movie you watch. People dress for it, quote it, collect it, argue about it, build things around it, play its music with full symphony orchestras and teach their kids which order they should watch everything in.
Fifty years later, New Jersey is already preparing to do all of that at once, and this list is almost certainly going to get much longer.
Research Sources
Primary and official sources were prioritized. The article distinguishes confirmed 2027 events from recurring New Jersey Star Wars traditions that have not yet announced 50th-anniversary programming.
• New Jersey Symphony, Star Wars: A New Hope in Concert
• Mayo Performing Arts Center, A New Hope in Concert
• Count Basie Center for the Arts, A New Hope in Concert,
• NJPAC, New Jersey Symphony: Star Wars: A New Hope in Concert
• State Theatre New Jersey, A New Hope in Concert 50th Anniversary Celebration
• StarWars.com, Star Wars Returns to Theaters for 50th Anniversary
• StarWars.com, Star Wars/Marvel: Hope Assembles
• Penguin Random House Comics Retail, Hope Assembles #1
• StarWars.com, Star Wars: Starfighter
• StarWars.com, Star Wars: The Experience
• StarWars.com, Star Wars Celebration Los Angeles 2027
• New Jersey Devils, 2026–27 Theme Nights
• Jersey Shore BlueClaws, 2026 Promotional Schedule
• Somerset Patriots, 2026 Star Wars Night
• Trenton Thunder, 2026 Promotional Schedule
Event, release and exhibition details attributed to the venue, New Jersey Symphony, StarWars.com, publisher and team pages cited in Research Sources. Event details are subject to change; check organizers before travel.