It’s been known for a while that the role of a younger Han Solo was to be cast for his own spinoff movie (and a possible cameo in Rogue One), with several casting rumors floating around. Well, it’s time to put the rumors to rest, as Hail, Caesar! star, Alden Ehrenreich, has landed the coveted role.
Page Six is reporting that Ehrenreich has signed on to play the iconic scoundrel made famous by Harrison Ford in the new movie, slated for 2018, which will focus on Solo before he joined the Rebel Alliance.
One insider told Page Six of Ehrenreich, 26, who most recently appeared in: “Alden really impressed Disney and Lucasfilm execs with his screen tests. The deal is basically done.”
The GuardianA relative unknown, Ehrenreich — who’s also the lead in Warren Beatty’s upcoming, untitled Howard Hughes project with Fox — beat out candidates including Scott Eastwood, Divergent stars Miles Teller and Ansel Elgort, Kingsmen and Eddie the Eagle star Taron Egerton, and Sing Street star Jack Reynor.
The casting of the Han Solo character has been so shrouded in secrecy it was named “Project Red Cup,” in reference to the ubiquitous red plastic Solo cups.
Lawrence Kasdan — who co-wrote The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens — said in a recent Q&A that the spinoff would not delve into the origins of Solo: “It will not be, ‘Here’s where he was born and this is how he was raised.’ I think what it will be is, ‘What was he like 10 years earlier?’ . . . But [legendary Japanese filmmaker Akira] Kurosawa once said the heroes are the ones that are still changing and the villains are locked and petrified into what they are.”
The film won’t start shooting until January, but reports are that the early casting is because the new Solo will have a cameo in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which is now shooting. That film will be set just before the events of Episode IV, dealing with how the Rebels stole the plans to the original Death Star, and is set to hit theaters on December 16, 2016.
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