The Han Solo standalone film Solo: A Star Wars Story has been on a rough path since its inception. It’s no Kessel Run, but rumors that the film is in more trouble than anyone anticipated have sent Star Wars fans on a warpath. Here’s why none of it really matters.
Unfounded rumors that Disney and Lucasfilm are bracing for an all-out flop of a film with Solo started circling the drain on Sunday, with ScreenGeek publishing a quote from an unnamed “source close to the film’s production” that suggested Solo will be a disaster.
“Disney is bracing themselves for the Han Solo movie to bomb,” the unfounded source reportedly said. “They were worried about it before all The Last Jedi controversy, but now they’re essentially writing Solo off. The lead actor, Alden Ehrenreich, can’t act, and they had a dialogue coach on hand for all of his scenes. On top of that, the script is unworkable. It’s going to be a car crash.”
Star Wars rumors are pretty hit and miss, sometimes delving into more “fan theory” territory than anything real, but this rumor doesn’t seem too off target. Solo has, in fact, been a bit of a mess so far.
Director Ron Howard took over Solo production after Lucasfilm ousted Phil Lord and Christopher Miller over “creative differences.” It was even rumored that Howard started from scratch after Lucasfilm supposedly decided that what Lord and Miller had created was unsalvagable, even by Jakku standards.
A lot of that mess might explain why fans have yet to see even a teaser trailer for Solo just five months before the film’s premiere.
Fan outrage over the “purity” of Star Wars post-The Last Jedi is, apparently, also a problem. Solo is looking to explore the life of one of the series’ most iconic characters. At first, fans argued that Alden Ehrenreich, who will portray young Han in Solo, looked nothing like Harrison Ford. And now, stoking those arguments, Ehrenreich also had problems with delving into the character, according to these new rumors.
But, let’s be honest, none of this matters.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars started out with a truly terrible animated film. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back only garnered $209 million at the box office, making it the lowest-grossing live-action Star Wars movie of all time; many fans regard it as their favorite film in the series decades later.
And none of that is even taking into account the astronomical standards set by this latest trilogy. Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the first Star Wars film to grace theaters in 10 years, is the third-highest grossing movie in history behind Avatar (2009) and Titanic (1997). Star Wars: The Last Jedi is expected to join the top 10 by the time it exits theaters. All this said, it is genuinely unfair to expect a Star Wars anthology film with no real ties to a trilogy to live up to the real Star Wars trilogies; audiences still aren’t really sure what to make of a Star Wars anthology film.
It genuinely doesn’t matter if Solo: A Star Wars Story sucks. People will see it, they’ll get mad, and they’ll move on to Star Wars: Episode IX, which is set to premiere over a year later in December 2019.
The only thing that will stop Disney from making more Star Wars movies is the sun consuming the Earth — and maybe not even then.
