SOLO
PROJECT
The lowdown on the next
Star Wars spin-offAS THE FIRST Star Wars standalone story,
Rogue One, continues its box-ofice domination,
the second is about to get underway. ‘Young Han
Solo: A Star Wars Story’ (not the oficial title) will
start to shoot in January or early February. So with
a 25 May 2018 release date (up against Madagascar
4 !), 41 years to the day since we irst met the
Corellian smuggler, this is what we know so far...THE FILMMAKERS
On 7 July 2015, Lucasilm president Kathleen
Kennedy announced Phil Lord and Chris Miller,
the duo behind the Jump Street franchise and
The LEGO Movie, as directors. For all their hip,
lip sensibility, they have a clear grasp of what
makes Solo tick. “He is clever but smart,” Lord
told Star Wars Celebration. “He doesn’t want to
do anything that he’s told, and if he’s told not to
do something, he only wants to do it more. He’s
very sarcastic and yet unreasonably optimistic.
He’s basically a cynical guy with the biggest
heart in the galaxy.” Surely they think Solo
shoots irst.THE HERO
Alden Ehrenreich, best known for Hail, Caesar!,
was chosen from 300 hopefuls including
established names like Dave Franco, Aaron
Taylor-Johnson, Ansel Elgort, Jack Reynor and
Miles Teller. “Turns out that was a total waste of
money because the person who got the part was
the irst person to audition, literally the irst
person to walk in the door,” Lord said. Ehrenreich
was buzzed to do a chemistry test with
Chewbacca — conirming the unsurprising news
that the Wookiee stays in the picture — and
revealed, “The coolest part of that audition
process was when I went on the Falcon. It was
pretty unbelievable.”THE COHORTS
Lando Calrissian, Han’s old buddy, will be
played by modern renaissance man Donald
Glover, best known for Community, his
self-penned show Atlanta and his musical
alter-egos Childish Gambino and mcDJ. As
seems compulsory these days for any actorWORDS IAN FREER ILLUSTRATION JAMES CAREY