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Variety

Alden Ehrenreich to Play Han Solo in ‘Star Wars’ Spinoff

Justin Kroll
Film Reporter

Disney and LucasFilm have found their new Han Solo.

“Hail, Caesar!” thesp Alden Ehrenreich has been tapped to star in the “Star Wars”-universe standalone movie revolving around Han Solo, sources tell Variety. Deadline Hollywood first reported that Ehrenreich was the frontrunner to land the role, and sources have now confirmed that he’s set to play the rebel smuggler, originally portrayed by Harrison Ford.

Phil Lord and Chris Miller are directing with Kathleen Kennedy producing.

No plot details have been revealed, other than that the film will be set prior to “Star Wars: A New Hope,” like the other standalone pic “Rogue One.” Production is not expected to begin until January. Sources told Variety earlier this year that the reason for the January start may be so that the character may cameo in “Rogue One,” giving the production time to shoot the scene that introduces the new Han Solo.

The film will bow on May 25, 2018. The latest movie in the blockbuster franchise, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” opened in December.

While “Hail, Caesar!” was underwhelming at the box office, Ehrenreich was applauded by critics for his breakout performance. He is repped by CAA.

Well...he somewhat resembles a younger Ford.

@ the caption below Harrison Ford's photo:

Harrison Ford’s Advice to New Han Solo? ‘Don’t Do It!’

Fuckin A right!

Still have no idea why they think anyone is eager for a Han Solo movie.

Some people probably are, but they ought to know their will be a massive backlash from the unpleaseable OT fans who won't accept anyone but Ford in the role.

The Romulan Republic wrote:Some people probably are, but they ought to know their will be a massive backlash from the unpleaseable OT fans who won't accept anyone but Ford in the role.

I agree that Ford is THE Han Solo. However, he will be dead at some point, so there will be no other choice than to re-cast him eventually. I'd rather have a non-Ford Han Solo than none at all. Same goes for Indiana Jones.

Galvatron wrote: @ the caption below Harrison Ford's photo:

Harrison Ford’s Advice to New Han Solo? ‘Don’t Do It!’

Fuckin A right!

Oddly enough, if you go to the source article for that statement, it doesn't appear anywhere in the quoted form.

Borgholio wrote:

The Romulan Republic wrote:Some people probably are, but they ought to know their will be a massive backlash from the unpleaseable OT fans who won't accept anyone but Ford in the role.

I agree that Ford is THE Han Solo. However, he will be dead at some point, so there will be no other choice than to re-cast him eventually. I'd rather have a non-Ford Han Solo than none at all. Same goes for Indiana Jones.

intrestingly enough there has other actors besides Harrison Ford who have played Indiana Jones at least 3 possibly 4 or 5 (you had indy as young kid, indy as a teen/young adult and indy as an old man in the young indy series and ofc indy as a teen in the 3rd film, though the teen roles could have been played by the same actor I can't remember).

The Romulan Republic wrote:Some people probably are, but they ought to know their will be a massive backlash from the unpleaseable OT fans who won't accept anyone but Ford in the role.

They're unpleasable, but they'll still see the thing and generate revenue.

On the other hand, there's a fuckton of younger people who don't care too much about Harrison Ford, who might enjoy this new guy.

Its a pity Ford can't do it forever though, because old or not, Force Awakens showed he still had what it took to be an awesome Han.

Honestly, while Rey was likeable and a female protagonist in a Star Wars film was a big first, Fin and Ren were more complex (at least if you look at that film alone), and Finn has a stronger arc, Ford as Han stole the show in terms of pure charisma on-screen, I think.

My biggest concern is that any movie depicting a younger Han will invariably have a forced "competing smuggler" character or some sort of "longtime friend" who apparently never came up ever again. I also hope that they don't force in a young Lando, as their relationship seemed to be a more "later in life" thing...

Where do you get that from? They were clearly old friends in ESB, and Han was still fairly young (maybe in this 30s?) at that point.

biostem wrote:My biggest concern is that any movie depicting a younger Han will invariably have a forced "competing smuggler" character or some sort of "longtime friend" who apparently never came up ever again.

Why would that be an issue? When we see Han in later films, he tends to be in situations not conducive to bringing up opponents from his youth.

Which leads to the question: Are we going to dredge up the early Han stories from the EU, or go with something more original? And, how are people going to react when Disney decides to cast a love interest for Han that isn't Leia(e.g. Bria, or that young CorpSec lady)?

U.P. Cinnabar wrote:Which leads to the question: Are we going to dredge up the early Han stories from the EU, or go with something more original? And, how are people going to react when Disney decides to cast a love interest for Han that isn't Leia(e.g. Bria, or that young CorpSec lady)?

Given the current precedent, they will likely borrow some ideas but change them heavily.

As for a love interest, who knows what they will do. Jyn Esso might even be an option, fitting the Bria role nicely. Though it would have to be wrapped up in a fashion that makes her unavailable as of the movies. Given that Han Solo has the whole heroic rouge archetype, it would actually feel odd not featuring some sort of love interest.

As a side note, did you know that in an earlier draft of the script, Han had a hooker in his lap when he was introduced?

No, actually I didn't.

Gandalf wrote:

biostem wrote:My biggest concern is that any movie depicting a younger Han will invariably have a forced "competing smuggler" character or some sort of "longtime friend" who apparently never came up ever again.

Why would that be an issue? When we see Han in later films, he tends to be in situations not conducive to bringing up opponents from his youth.

Mainly because it is very cliched. It'd actually be more interesting, IMO, for Han to have a sort of happy life - perhaps go the route of a spoiled rich kid who learns a hard lesson - maybe his womanizing is something he picked up from dear old dad, and his parents stayed together more to keep up appearances than because they actually liked being around each other. Though, I suppose at this point, any direction you go would have been done before...

I know some people are going to have the same complaint about this as they had with the Prequels (well one of the complaints they had aboot the Prequels), we already know whats going to happen mostly. Maybe not the meat of things but we already know generally how things are going to go. Any woman Hand Solo gets with is not going to last, any situation where Han or Chewie or the Falcon are in danger has no hook because we know they are going to die/be destroyed then, we know Han ain't going to pick the Merr Sonn Power 5 when he goes gun shopping and we know Lando and Han have a falling out.

It removes some of the possibilities for drama or suspense just like having watch the OT before the PT did for alot of people. We knew who lives and who dies, we knew how major events played out, and so on.

All that said I think it will be a minor complaint. Most people are not likely to mind too much the knowing of things. Any irritation that is had would probably be overridden by the want to see how Han and others got to that point, same as how people not swayed by internet circlejerks and other peoples opinions enjoyed seeing the events we knew happened but had never seen like the Fall of the Republic and the Clone Wars in the Prequels.

I think the Han movie will probably be good, the actor looks decent and he is said to be good in Hail Caesar (I'll watch the movie myself ASAP to find out). My only worry about it is mucking with his backstory and adding a bunch of shit that makes no sense but I doubt Disney would allow that and of course them finding some lameass way to justify the use of "Parsecs" for the Kessel Run like the old EU did with black holes and time travel or whatever bullshit they tried to say.

I'm far more worried about the potential Buba Fatt movie. I fear they would crib the "popular" works of Karen Traviss for ideas or even bring her back considered she was considered the "expert" of Fett for awhile. Thankfully I doubt she would return after she got her ass burned by TCW tv series completely airlocking pretty much anything she wrote about the Mand'ohs and Clones and Disney finishing off the rest along with the rest of the old EU.

One major fear I have in terms of story is that they will have the same idea of destiny as the '09 Star Trek reboot. That there will be some idea that Han Solo is destined by be the hero we know and love. The whole point of Han's character is that he had no destiny to be a hero, he chose to do so. It would also ruin his character arc if he were anything other than the scoundrel that we expect. I also hope they say and do nothing about the whole Han Shot First issue. Let it go and move on, using out of universe references like this are crap.

As for Boba Fett, I personally don't actually care all that much about the character. If they didn't bother to bring in Timothy Zahn for anything*, I doubt they will bother with Traviss, especially given that Disney has to know about the conflicts that erupted over her ideas.

* Though I suspect this was at least partially because he isn't a great team player, which is what Disney currently needs. The same applies to Traviss at least as much.

biostem wrote:My biggest concern is that any movie depicting a younger Han will invariably have a forced "competing smuggler" character or some sort of "longtime friend" who apparently never came up ever again. I also hope that they don't force in a young Lando, as their relationship seemed to be a more "later in life" thing...

If Kasdan has a hand in writing it, I wouldn't at all be surprised if Han Solo has his own René Belloq.

Galvatron wrote:

biostem wrote:My biggest concern is that any movie depicting a younger Han will invariably have a forced "competing smuggler" character or some sort of "longtime friend" who apparently never came up ever again. I also hope that they don't force in a young Lando, as their relationship seemed to be a more "later in life" thing...

If Kasdan has a hand in writing it, I wouldn't at all be surprised if Han Solo has his own René Belloq.

Who turns out to be an Imperial collaborator, don't forget.

Borgholio wrote:

The Romulan Republic wrote:Some people probably are, but they ought to know their will be a massive backlash from the unpleaseable OT fans who won't accept anyone but Ford in the role.

I agree that Ford is THE Han Solo. However, he will be dead at some point, so there will be no other choice than to re-cast him eventually.

They could come up with new characters and new stories.

Who am I kidding? Creativity has no place in Disney Star Wars.

I'd rather have a non-Ford Han Solo than none at all. Same goes for Indiana Jones.

I'd rather have something new. Solo wasn't the first gun-slinging outlaw with a heart of gold, and Indy wasn't the first adventurer traveling to distant lands in search of fortune and glory. There's no reason they should be the last, either.

Elfdart wrote:I'd rather have something new. Solo wasn't the first gun-slinging outlaw with a heart of gold, and Indy wasn't the first adventurer traveling to distant lands in search of fortune and glory. There's no reason they should be the last, either.

For once, we agree.

Besides, I'd rather see Anthony Ingruber as young Han anyway. He's eerily similar to Harrison Ford and has been doing Ford impressions on YouTube for years before finally getting hired to play the young version of Ford's character in Age of Adaline.

The real question is: will we see his Corellian bloodstripes?

Galvatron wrote:The real question is: will we see his Corellian bloodstripes?

Look man, Han just likes wearing striped pants. They don't need to mean anything.

Given how terrible the old EU was about having to assign IMPORTANT SIGNIFICANCE to every fucking background detail and nameless extra, I'm hoping they never will. Anything to keep that trend from re-infesting itself is a good thing.

Perhaps one of the adventures can be Han Solo's trip to the Space Gap with Chewie. After a trip through the space mall, he comes to the conclusion that the striped pants aren't as nice, but he can get a good deal on them. Then he goes to the food court to find Chewie's favourite blue milk, leaving space in the sequel to explain his vest.

Instant merchandising hit.