There’s a quite a bit to talk about in the “Star Wars” universe, not only with “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” arriving in a few short months, but also the “Anthology” series spin-offs that are also coming. Next year, Gareth Edwards will deliver “Star Wars: Rogue One,” and the plan had been for Josh Trank to follow in 2018 with his own anthology picture. However, the “Fantastic Four” mess saw him removed and/or exit that job (depending on who you ask) and a spin-off Han Solo movie directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller was put into its place. While speaking to EW, Kennedy revealed the approach to the Han Solo movie, and the fate of Trank’s movie.
“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,” she said. And it’s frankly a relief to hear this just be an origin story, and while the character will be young, he won’t be that young.
“He’ll definitely be probably in the high teens, low 20s. We’re not introducing you to a 10-year-old Han Solo,” Kennedy said, also elaborating on the overall approach to the story. “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.”
So, it seems they are on a good path, but what about Trank’s movie, which reportedly would’ve focused on Boba Fett? “It’s still one of the stories that we absolutely want to tell,” Kennedy said, though she wouldn’t confirm if the movie was about the iconic bounty hunter or not. “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.” Projected release date? Likely in 2020.
That’s just the latest and as the world braces for ‘The Force Awakens,’ there will surely be more to come.