While Warwick Davis is probably best knows for his various roles in the Star Wars franchise, or perhaps Harry Potter, many remember him just as fondly for the 1988 fantasy movie Willow. Davis recently reunited with Willow's director, Ron Howard for Solo: A Star Wars Story and so it's little surprise that the 30-year-old film has been a topic of conversation. Howard has recently talked about the possibility of doing a follow-up and so when I recently had the opportunity to speak with Warwick Davis personally, I asked him if he would be interested in returning to the role. It turns out that not only would he be excited to play Willow again, but while filming Solo he even talked to screenwriter Jon Kasdan about places to take the character in a new story. According to Davis...
That would be hugely exciting....revisiting Willow as a character, now he's older and wiser and perhaps even a better sorcerer, who knows by now, would be brilliant fun. I would absolutely love to do that. Ron and I we chatted about Willow quite a lot. Jon Kasdan who was obviously the screenwriter on Solo, he's a pretty big fan of Willow, it's one of the reasons he got into screenwriting and filmmaking. He and I talked a lot about where we could take Willow in the future.
While Warwick Davis certainly wasn't ready to tell me if there's an actual plan in place for the future of Willow it does appear that it is the sort of thing that a lot of people are excited to consider. The fact that Jon Kasdan, the co-writer of Solo: A Star Wars Story is a Willow fan is not unknown, so one would guess he'd be up for writing a screenplay if Lucasfilm decided they wanted one.
As far as what the odds are of a Willow sequel actually happening go, they might be better than you think. Warwick Davis told me about an event that took place on the Solo set where pretty much everybody who would need to be involved in a Willow sequel found themselves in one place and chatting, not about Star Wars, the set they were on, but Willow.
I remember a particular day which was very special on Solo. I was working with the second unit and Ron, and I got a message through saying "oh George [Lucas] is here today, he'd like to see you.' So I went on set, it was the day they were on the Falcon. I remember myself, George, Jon Kasdan, Kathy Kennedy all chatting about Willow. I would think 'this is like the stars have aligned right here. If anybody's going to get a sequel or something else made in regard to Willow, this is it and this is the time to do it.' Who knows, kind of watch this space, I guess.
Willow wasn't a massive success when it was first released 30 years ago but over the ensuing years, generations have found and fallen in love with the story. While a new project is far from a sure thing, it also certainly doesn't sound like it's an entirely crazy idea either. Could we see the likes of Willow and Elora Danan again down the road? Watch this space, I guess.
