Harrison Ford's time as Han Solo in the Star Wars universe reached a devastating conclusion in 2015's Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but we're not done with the smuggler by a long shot. Next year Disney and Lucasfilm will wind the clock back to follow Han in his younger years in his own movie, the second of the Anthology spinoffs. Aside from who will comprise the main cast, the studios are being just as secretive about this Star Wars movie as they've been about the past ones, but today finally brought some concrete details about the Han Solo movie's plot.
Wall Street Journal reporter Ben Fritz was on hand while Disney CEO Bob Iger was chatting about Disney, Star Wars and business-related topics, and during the event, Iger revealed the following about the Han Solo movie.
So rather than just take place over a brief period of time as the previous Star Wars movies have done (i.e. a couple of days, weeks or months at most), the Han Solo movie will actually stretch across six years, showing audiences what Han was up to in those first years of adulthood. That gives the movie a much grander scope, but also provides more context about how he grew into the man we met at the beginning of A New Hope.
With regard to the Millennium Falcon and Chewbacca (which Iger actually referred to as a "certain vehicle" and a "certain Wookie"), there's no surprise there. If you're telling a Han Solo origin story, showing how he acquired the Millennium Falcon and met Chewbacca are the first two bases you cover. It will be interesting to see how much of this material overlaps to those Han Solo novels from the Expanded Universe continuity. For instance, will we see Han rescuing Chewie from the clutches of the Empire or will they cross paths some other way? More importantly, I can't help but hope that we see how Han made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. Fingers crossed!
As for the name part of Bob Iger's statement, that can be taken literally or figuratively. If literally, then that means Han Solo wasn't his original name, and we'll learn what he was originally called before he decided to take on the new identity. If figuratively (and I suspect that's how Iger meant it), then we'll learn how Han built his notorious reputation as a smuggler, thus "getting his name." After all, one doesn't just manage to piss off the likes of Jabba the Hutt and other seedy figures right out the gate.
There's still plenty that's left to be revealed about the Han Solo movie, but at least now fans have a better idea of what they'll be seeing when they walk into the theater next year. The main cast consists of Alden Ehrenreich as Han Solo, Donald Glover as Lando Calrissian, Woody Harrelson as Beckett, Joonas Suotamo as Chewbacca, Emilia Clarke, Thandie Newton, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Michael K. Williams. Phil Lord and Chris Miller are directing, while Lawrence and Jon Kasdan wrote the script.
The Han Solo movie will arrive in theaters on May 25, 2018.
