Han Solo Movie Cuts Wire Star Michael K. Williams

When Phil Lord and Chris Miller were fired from the upcoming Han Solo movie in June, there was reportedly only a few weeks of filming left. However, this has now stretched on to several months of reshoots on the Star Wars spinoff, with replacement director Ron Howard in charge. It has now been revealed that actor Michael K. Williams, best known for playing Omar Little in The Wire, is one of the casualties of additional photography.

In an interview wth Deadline, Williams--who is also known for Boardwalk Empire and 12 Years A Slave--revealed that scheduling issues meant that he was unable to return to London to reshoot his scenes. As a result, he had instead been cut out of the movie entirely.

"When Ron Howard got hired to finish out the film, there were some reshoot issues that needed to be done in regards to my character, in order for it to match the new direction which the producers wanted Ron to carry the film in," he said. "And that would have required me on a plane a month ago to London, to Pinewood, to do reshoots. But I'm here, on location in Africa.

"It's scheduling. I'm not going to be back on the market until the end of November after [SundanceTV show] Hap and Leonard, and for them to wait that long for me, that would have pushed back the release date, which I believe is in May 2018. They wanted me now; I couldn't go. So they had to clip-clip-clip."

Nevertheless, Williams spoke positively of his Star Wars experience. "I don't think that me not being in the Star Wars family is final," he said. "I left with a very good taste in my mouth about the whole family, and I hope that I left a good taste in their mouth. They're a great group of people, the Lucas family."

Howard has been releasing a series of images since he took over the Han Solo movie. The most recent was of an Imperial helmet, while earlier ones include the first look at Donald Glover as the young Lando Calrissian, a picture of Chewbacca on set, and what might be a new alien.

The Han Solo movie stars Alden Ehrenreich as Solo and Joonas Suotamo as Chewbacca, with support from Glover, Woody Harrelson, Thandie Newton, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and Emilia Clarke. It hits theaters on May 25, 2018.