Han Solo To Be A Young Adult In Upcoming Star Wars Anthology Movie

While it had already been announced that there were plans to do a Star Wars Anthology movie centered around everyone’s favorite private, Han Solo, what was still being questioned was what age the scoundrel would be for this movie. It was believed that since the prequel trilogy gave us a very young Anakin Skywalker, that we might see an equally young Solo. Still, fans around the world wondered as to how would old he would be.

The story itself is also still a mystery except now that Han will likely be in his very late teens, possibly early 20s, and that it is to be directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller (The LEGO Movie, 21 Jump Street). Kathleen Kennedy of Lucasfilm had plenty to share along with co-writer Lawrence Kasdan regarding this movie despite the fact that its development is very much in the early stages.

EW had reported on two big stories regarding the return of Han Solo to the Star Wars films, one of those involving the spin-off movie. Any concern, however, about the spin-off film featuring a young pre-teen actor as Solo was quickly dismissed. Said Kennedy:

He’ll definitely be probably in the high teens, low 20s. We’re not introducing you to a 10-year-old Han Solo.

That’s pretty much all we know. The story is still not being talked about, but then again the film is practically three years away so the chances of us knowing anything are pretty remote. Kennedy also said:

Those are exactly the questions we’re asking. There’s got to be a reason for [the stand-alone film] to be. And obviously the thing that Star Wars has always done so well is it doesn’t spend a lot of time [explaining] the stories that have come before. We don’t want to do that either. 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.

Given the richness and depth of the Star Wars universe there are already plenty of possible directions such a movie could take which no doubt fuels all of the fan discussions and conjecture which has been setting the Internet on fire. However, there are people who are holding out hope that the movies won’t be limiting themselves to what is already known, and that some good old fashioned “universe building” can come into play here.

Lawrence Kasdan, screenwriter on The Force Awakens, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi, recruited his son Jon Kasdan (Freaks and Geeks) to help write the film.

Since I did not expect to be sidetracked like this [by the demands of The Force Awakens script], when I came back to it I said to Kathy, you know, I would like Jon to write this with me. I could use some inspiration and Jon is really good, and he’s full of energy for the project, and I said, I think Jon would be a good one to do this. And we went forward that way.

The Star Wars Anthology film centering on Han Solo is slated for a May 25, 2018 release, but there is another Anthology movie on the table that is scheduled to come out sooner. Rogue One is to be released in 2016, in addition to a movie about Boba Fett, which was to be directed by Josh Trank. However that was before the nightmare called Fantastic Four came into being. The film about Fett is still moving forward, hopefully for a release around 2020. Said Kennedy:

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.