A young Han Solo is to get his own spin-off film directed by Christopher Miller and Phil Lord, the duo behind The Lego Movie and the two hit 21 Jump Street films, it has been confirmed. The pair, who had toyed with Star Wars lore in The Lego Movie, will direct a script written by Lawrence Kasdan and Jon Kasdan in the latest in the projected string of Star Wars anthology movies.
According to a statement posted on the official Star Wars site, the film’s plot will focus “on how young Han Solo became the smuggler, thief, and scoundrel whom Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi first encountered in the cantina at Mos Eisley”.
In a typically offbeat statement, Miller and Lord said: “We promise to take risks, to give the audience a fresh experience, and we pledge ourselves to be faithful stewards of these characters who mean so much to us. This is a dream come true for us. And not the kind of dream where you’re late for work and all your clothes are made of pudding, but the kind of dream where you get to make a film with some of the greatest characters ever, in a film franchise you’ve loved since before you can remember having dreams at all.”
JJ Abrams’s Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, which opens 19 December, will be followed by the first of the planned Star Wars anthology movies Star Wars: Rogue One in December 2016. Felicity Jones will star in the film, directed by Gareth Edwards (of Godzilla), as a resistance fighter on a mission to steal the plans for the Death Star. The film is set between Episodes III and IV. It has been rumoured that Darth Vader will appear in Edwards’s film.
Chronicle director Josh Trank was previously expected to direct another anthology movie for the franchise, said to be an origin story about the intergalactic bounty hunter Boba Fett. Trank left the project in May.
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