'Solo: A Star Wars Story' Sequels Seem Really Likely, According to Critics

When Rogue One was coming out in late 2016, everyone joked about the sequel, since that Star Wars film ended about one second before the original film began. But now, with Solo, this standalone Star Wars movie might be anything but, and a legit sequel is no joke. Now that the Han Solo origin story flick is nearly out in wide release, critics who have seen the film already think it’s pretty obvious there will be sequels, and they don’t mean A New Hope.

On Thursday, Solo: Star Wars Story premiered in Los Angeles resulting in a slew of social media reactions from those who attended the early screening. Overall, despite rumblings of the film not being up-to-snuff, the reactions from fans and media in attendance where overwhelmingly positive, strongly suggesting the film will not only do well at the box office but make Star Wars fans happy, too. But the most interesting detail was clearly that Solo isn’t messing around when it comes to building a Han, Chewie and Lando franchise.

Mike Ryan of Uproxx made it very clear that Solo is “not really hiding the fact it’s setting up more Han Solo movies,” which seems to corroborate the idea that Alden Ehrenreich is doing two more Star Wars films after this one. When director Ron Howard was asked about plans for another Han Solo film, he indicated that it all depended on how much fans like this one.

Either way, it sounds like Solo will be open-ended enough to allow for a lot more movies with these partiuclar actors playing the roles they’re playing. Which, makes a lot of sense. Han Solo was smuggling and flying around the galaxy for at least a decade before he met Obi-Wan and Luke Skywalker in that bar on Tatooine in the original Star Wars, so, there’s potentially a ton of time there for several Indiana Jones-style exploits.

In just two weeks, Solo will be out in wide-release on May 25, at which point the real reactions will start to happen. As with all early screenings, the buzz right now for this one is positive. And that’s mostly because people tend not to trash huge movies where they enjoyed early VIP access. So, even if Solo is setting up sequels in its story, the box office and reviews are really what will seal the deal.

Regardless of any of this, the nicest thing about Solo is that unlike The Last Jedi or The Force Awakens before it, the expectations for this Star Wars story are firmly on the wait-and-see fun side of the Force, rather than the make-or-break-this-movie-series-is-my-life side of things. And with so many dark and heavy blockbusters in recent memory (like Infinity War), it sounds like Solo will bring us back to the light.