Nothing probably changed their minds, they likely always planned for it to drop on the 50th Anniversary. they’ll have been working on it for 5 years before it actually gets released.
It’s not like this is going to earn THAT much, or that they’re down so bad that they NEEDED it to come out earlier.
I doubt it was planned all along.
JJ Abrams said in 2019 he directly asked Lucasfilm to release the original versions, and they gave some vague answer about how it wasn’t going to happen.
“I have asked about this because, I mean, who wouldn’t want to see that? But I’ve been told that — for reasons that I don’t quite understand — that that’s not necessarily possible. Which is, you know, too bad because that was the thing that I loved.”
If he wasn’t able to convince them or was even given a reason, that’s pretty odd.
Everyone’s hunch seemed to be just that they wanted to respect George’s wishes, and now they no longer care I guess lol
And I think between theatrical and home media it will easily earn them $100 million+