Are you ready for a double dose of Han Solo? The infamous scoundrel is returning as his older self in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, with Harrison Ford back in the familiar role, but there's also a Han Solo spinoff coming in May 2018 directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller.
Details on that film have been scarce, but producer Kathleen Kennedy opened up to EW about it, giving a clue as to what kind of actor they're looking for and what the overall tone will be. One thing she wants to assure fans is that this won't be a kiddie Han Solo adventure, he'll be closer to young adult age....
“He’ll definitely be probably in the high teens, low 20s. We’re not introducing you to a 10-year-old Han Solo.”
While many have often wondered who Han Solo was before he encountered Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker at the cantina, there's always the fear of exposing too much about him and ruining some of the mystique. Kennedy says the screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan and his son Jon will attempt to give fans what they've been most curious about...
“We don’t want to spend time going back and answering a lot of questions that, quite frankly, I don’t think people want answered...…I think the key here is that we are identifying an event or events in Han Solo’s life that gives you some idea of who he is and why he is the character we have all known to love…You can imagine, given who we’ve chosen to come in and direct, it should be very entertaining and funny. Han Solo is the character inside Star Wars that everybody knows has a wit and sense of humor. So that’s what this should be.”
Along with this film and Star Wars: Rogue One there's still another Anthology project developing, although it's hit a few roadblocks. That would be the presumed Boba Fett film that was to be directed by Fantastic Four's Josh Trank before he was fired some time back. Kennedy promises that it is still going to happen some time down the line, but it may be a while.
"It’s still one of the stories that we absolutely want to tell. There is a lot of innovative technology in and around what it is we’re doing with that story, so for a lot of reasons, we were comfortable postponing that. But we’re definitely still developing it."
For now, fans can occupy themselves speculating on who should play a teen version of Han Solo. Sorry, you can't cast Chris Pratt in everything. An earlier rumor had Aaron Paul up for the role, but based on Kennedy's comments he's going to be too old for it. It may be a smart decision to go with a relatively unknown actor who won't be compared to Ford quite as much, but honestly, no matter who gets cast they've got huge shoes to fill.
