When the Star Wars anthologies — now Star Wars stories — were announced, the intention would be that they were standalone, one-off films. They told a story, whether it was the theft of the Death Star plans, or the early life of Han Solo, and then were done. But a new rumour suggests that at least one Star Wars story could develop into its own franchise.
The New York Daily News is reporting that when hiring Alden Ehrenreich to play the young smuggler, Disney actually signed him on for a three-film deal. The site’s insiders claim it’s because executives at Lucasfilm and Disney are currently not just enchanted by the young actor’s auditions, but with the idea that the Han Solo film (or films) can tell a wide variety of stories within the Star Wars universe, that don’t necessarily have to involve the hero fighting the Empire.
Although the whole point of these standalone films was to tell a one-and-done story, if there’s truth to this report it makes a good bit of sense of Disney and Lucasfilm. Not only would it tie down Eherenreich for the potential to do more films, but it’s also been very clear they want to do a lot of stuff with Han Solo, even after the character perished in The Force Awakens. While projects like Rogue One might stay as one-offs, a character like Han has too much potential to stick to just one movie.