‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ will return to theaters to celebrate its 50th anniversary, but Disney didn’t say which version

It might not be the big anime-style birthday remake some “Star Wars” acolytes were hoping for, but “Star Wars: A New Hope” will be blasting back into movie theaters to celebrate its landmark 50th anniversary starting in April of 2027.

The sprawling space opera is set to hit the silver screen again with a special limited-edition theatrical run beginning on April 30, 2027, and aptly running through the official Star Wars Day holiday on May the 4th. This will be the planet-wide event too, so international Star Wars fans won’t miss out.

But which version of Star Wars: A New Hope will it be? That’s the million-credit question, and we don’t know the answer at the moment.

There is a sliver of hope for purist fans that perhaps Disney might pull out an untouched archival print — the original version of the sci-fi sensation that first hit theaters on May 25, 1977 — but it’s unlikely that Disney would risk upsetting creator George Lucas. Instead, we’d expect a freshened-up 1997 20th anniversary print to be the star attraction.

Back in June, the British Film Institute blessed audiences with a rare virgin 1977 print of “Star Wars” on the opening night of the Film on Film Festival in London. It was presented “exactly as experienced by audiences on its original release, screening from one of the precious handful of dye transfer IB Technicolor prints produced for the first British release.”

On its initial release over that historic summer of 1977, “Star Wars: A New Hope” collected a domestic box office total of $307 million, an astonishing sum for the time, and has since gone through multiple re-releases to gather a global tally of $775 million off of an estimated $11 million budget.

Stay tuned to Space.com for ticket sales info and more “Star Wars” 50th anniversary news as it’s announced. And of course, if you want to watch Star Wars from the comfort of your own home, check out Disney+.