han solo

A big question for fans of ‘Star Wars’ of late has been whether Disney really intended to keep the ‘Han Solo’ film’s release date of May 25, 2018 which was originally set back when ‘The Last Jedi’ was also supposed to be released in May of 2017, before the second film of the main saga trilogy was pushed back to December, making a December release date a new ‘Star Wars’ tradition for Disney. However, it seems the House of Mouse has decided to keep the May release date for the ‘Han Solo’ film, and there are some good reasons behind it.

First and foremost, May 25, 2018 marks the 41st anniversary of the day the original ‘Star Wars’ hit theaters, making the day a celebration of sorts, and you know Lucasfilm is going to capitalize on the nostalgia factor. And from Disney’s perspective, the date allows them to completely DOMINATE the early summer box-office of 2018, as ‘Han Solo’ will come out just 3 weeks after ‘Infinity War,’ and just two weeks before ‘The Incredibles 2’ meaning Disney will have over a month of highly anticipated releases from Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Pixar, with all of those fans hitting up theaters to see the latest and greatest from those studios.

In keeping with ‘Han Solo’ news, we also got an excellent photo (see above) from the set this week, featuring the new cast in the cockpit of the Millenium Falcon as well as directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller (fittingly enough, these guys are sitting at the controls).

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It’s almost surreal seeing Alden Ehrenreich in the cockpit of the Falcon next to Chewie (who will be played this time around by Soonas Suotamo, who shared the role with original Chewbacca Peter Mayhew in ‘The Force Awakens’), but Ehrenreich looks pretty good in there, and I can just about picture him in costume. Also featured are Woody Harrelson and Emilia Clarke, whose characters we do not know just yet but we suspect are playing the mentor and the love interest respectively, though Harrelson might be playing Expanded Universe character Garris Shrike, but that is still up in the air. Then there’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the British comedian cast to play the CGI droid in this outing, who the producers are clearly hoping will be as memorable and loved by fans as BB-8 and K-2S0 were in ‘The Force Awakens’ and ‘Rogue one,’ especially since she will be the first female droid heavily featured in the saga. And of course, there’s the great Donald Glover in the photo, taking over as Lando Calrissian, arguably the most exciting casting choice of the movie, whom I hope gets as much screen time as possible and manages to get his own spin-off, because I think he is going to nail the role, and I cannot wait to see what he does with the character.

Are you excited for the ‘Han Solo’ standalone film? Do you kind of wish that it was coming out in December like the other Disney ‘Star Wars’ films? What are your thoughts on the cast? Share your thoughts in the comments below!