Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller are currently preparing the upcoming Han Solo movie for production. The script for that film was written by Lawrence Kasdan and his son Jon. As you know, Kasdan has a long history with writing Star Wars films, so it gives a lot of us fans hope that he’s given us one of the best possible early stories for Han Solo.
Kasdan was recently awarded with the first Icon Award for Contributions to the Cinematic Arts at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival. Before he was given the award, he participated in a Q&A panel in which he covered several Star Wars topics. During that panel, he talked about the Han Solo standalone film and confirmed that it would start shooting in January 2017.
Here’s a transcript of how the conversation went down, via Atlanta Business Chronicle:
Q: What can you tell us about the Han Solo project?
Lawrence Kasdan: Young Han! (Laughs)
Q: For the fans, generally speaking, should they be excited?
Lawrence Kasdan: Oh, I think so! You know, Chris Miller and Phil Lord are going to direct it. They’re great, funny and imaginative and we’ve had a great time together. My son [Jon] and I wrote the script and Chris and Phil are working on it and they’re about to move to London to start shooting in January. And it should be fun.
Q: 2018 is the release date?
Lawrence Kasdan: Yes. They’re actually scheduled for May. The [other Star Wars films] are falling on Christmas — Rogue One and Episode 9. Han will come before Episode 9.
Alden Ehrenreich is set to play Han Solo and even though we don’t know any story details for the film yet, we do know that it is set before the events of Star Wars: A New Hope and that his friend Chewbacca will be included. The movie will be released in May of 2018.