Will Harrison Ford's Injury Delay 'Star Wars: Episode VII'?

Has there ever been as much Internet speculation about an actor's injury than what we're seeing now with Harrison Ford? The 71-year-old actor suffered the injury on the set of Star Wars: Episode VII, trying to relive his youth as Han Solo (see what happens?), and it was reported as something that would keep him out for eight weeks. But a new story at the generally reliable Jedi News says the break is worse than originally thought and could keep Ford out up to six months, possibly longer.

The big wigs at Disney and Lucasfilm were called to an emergency meeting at Pinewood Studios to figure out a plan of attack. Either the film undergoes some significant rewrites to lessen Han Solo's part in the story, or production could be put on hold. The effect could be to push the film into 2016, which you may recall was what J.J. Abrams always wanted. But that would cause all sorts of problems for Disney's overall Star Wars plan of releasing one new film each year, alternating between trilogy and spinoffs.

What's likely going to happen is that Abrams will shoot as much as he possibly can without Ford, then lean a bit heavier on stunt doubles to make up the difference. Injuries, pregnancies, and sadly even deaths happen all of the time during Hollywood productions and they tend to just keep on going.  There's too much riding on Star Wars: Episode VII coming out on time for Disney to allow anything else. So expect to see the film hit the December 18th 2015 date, even if that means we may get less Han Solo than we all want.