Luke Skywalker and Finn the Stormtrooper, also known as Mark Hamill and John Boyega, supported a campaign online to allow a terminally ill Star Wars fan to watch The Force Awakens earlier than the scheduled release date, which is still on the 18th of December. A 32-year old, Daniel Fleetwood, was diagnosed with spindle cell sarcoma, which is a very rare type of connective tissue cancer last July and was only given two months to live, The Verge reported.
Since then, the patient's family and friends have been using the hashtag #ForceforDaniel in several social media sites in order to convince Disney and Bad Robot, director JJ. Abrams' production company to let the avid Star Wars fan watch the film before he pass away. Hamill and Boyega also retweeted the hastag on the 30th of October. Apart from the two stars, Chewbacca aka Peter Mayhew also retweeted the hashtag, AV Club reported.
Similar thing happened before. Abrams allowed Daniel Craft, the director of the New York Asian Film Festival to watch the early cut of Star Trek: Into Darkness nearly five months ahead of its scheduled release date in 2013. Craft was diagnosed with cancer and was given a few weeks to live. Craft passed away few days later.
Therefore, this wouldn't be the very first time a fan's dying wish to watch a movie ahead of the release date has been granted.
Here's the latest update from Fleetwood's wife on Facebook.
"This is Ashley writing for Daniel. He just wanted me to tell EVERYONE how grateful he is! How touched he is, how he "finally feels alive again since the terminal diagnoses." Thank you to family, friends and complete amazing strangers for all the effort and love! #forcefordaniel."