From Daisy Ridley and John Boyega to Adam Driver and Felicity Jones, a host of young stars have joined the Star Wars universe in recent years. But while all of these actors were playing new characters, Alden Ehrenreich has a much tougher job; as the star of next month's Solo: A Star Wars Story, he is playing the younger version of one of the franchise's most famous characters. Ehrenreich has now revealed that he's signed on to appear as Han Solo in more than one Star Wars movie.
In an interview with Esquire, Ehrenreich let slip that his contract is in fact for three movies, before admitting that "I don't know if that's officially public." While it's not surprising that Lucasfilm has signed the actor on for more than one film, this is the first indication that the studio is considering further adventures of the young Solo.
Elsewhere in the interview, Ehrenreich spoke about the firing of Solo's original directors, Phil Lord and Chris Miller. They left the movie during production in June last year, following rumors of conflicts with Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy. Ehrenreich confirmed that Lord and Miller's directing approach was a lot loose than that of replacement director Ron Howard.
"They had a different style than Ron in terms of the way we were working," he said. "From the first screen test on, we played around with it a lot. We tried a lot of different things, rethinking behind the scenes. That was yielding a different movie than the other factions wanted. I knew what I was doing, but in terms of what that adds up to, you're so in the dark as an actor. You don't know what it's shaping up to be, how they're editing it, so it's kind of impossible without having seen those things to know what the difference [of opinion] was, or exactly what created those differences."
Ehrenreich also states that it was Lord and Miller themselves that told him they had left the movie. "They said, 'We were let go,' and that's it. They had mentioned there were some disagreements before, but they didn't get into it. They wished me the best with the rest of the movie.
"On a personal level, it felt emotional, for them to be going after we'd set out on that course together. Because I spent a lot of time with them, and we had a really good relationship--they also cast me. But I think at that point, they were kind of on board with [the decision], too. Like, 'This is what's happening.' That's not what they said to me, but that was the vibe I got."
Solo: A Star Wars Story also stars Joonas Suotamo as Chewbacca and Donald Glover as Lando, plus Woody Harrelson, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and Emilia Clarke. It hits theaters on May 25, 2018. The second Solo trailer was released last month.
In related news, it was announced in February that Jungle Book director Jon Favreau is developing a new live-action Star Wars TV show. The series is set to premiere on Disney's streaming platform, which launches next year. This is in addition to the two new Star Wars movie series in the work, one from Last Jedi director Rian Johnson, the other overseen by Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.
