I don’t know if this entirely puts the kibosh on the “Finn will die” rumours but he’s one of the four actors listed on IMDb’s Episode VIII page.
I absolutely hope Finn does not buy it. It would be a slap in the face to tons of black kids who might find a role model in Finn or John Boyega himself, especially when there’s a dearth of leading roles for black people due to discrimination in Hollywood. I would easily forgive plot holes or Abrams copy and pasting the story of the very first film, but killing Finn off before the end of this first movie would be an awful bait and switch.
I think I brought this up last time the possibility of Finn dying came up, but a few months ago when everyone was talking about Tatiana Maslany and Gina Rodriguez and that other actress I don’t remember circling a part in Episode VIII, weren’t they supposed to have done chemistry reads with Boyega? I know that was never confirmed, but it seemed reasonable enough. I’ve never for a second thought Finn would die, though. With all of that talk about how they’re passing the torch to the new characters, I doubt they’re going to kill one of the two or three most prominent of those new characters immediately.
EDIT: Here’s the Chinese trailer in HD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crcBXyVJAi4