According to The Hollywood Reporter’s unnamed Bothan spies, Disney and Lucasfilm have hired Phil Lord and Chris Miller (The Lego Movie, Last Man On Earth, 21 Jump Street) to direct a Han Solo prequel movie. This Han Solo story will be one of the Star Wars “anthology” movies, like Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One, that will be coming out in between the actual numbered episodes; . THR also points out that this is a separate project from the one that Josh Trank recently left, which is rumored to be a Boba Fett origin story. As far as anyone knows, that project is still in development and is still looking for a new director to replace Trank.
Lord and Miller have been attached to a lot of things lately, including a solo Flash movie and another Jump Street sequel, but THR predicts that they’ll have to back off from directing both of those if this Star Wars deal goes through. They’ve also been working on an animated Spider-Man project of some sort—as well as future Lego movies—but, since they’re not directing them, their involvement in those will most likely be unaffected by this.
Now, a Han Solo movie would be a massively high-profile film for anyone to tackle, so we’d just like to tell Lord and Miller that making a movie about Han Solo ain’t like dusting crops. Without precise calculations, they could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova, and that’d end their filmmaking career real quick, wouldn’t it?
UPDATE: Lucasfilm-owned Starwars.com has confirmed Lord and Miller’s hiring, as well as revealing that the film will be written by The Empire Strikes Back, Return Of The Jedi, and The Force Awakens screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan and his son, Jon. According to Starwars.com, “The story focuses on how young Han Solo became the smuggler, thief, and scoundrel whom Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi first encountered in the cantina at Mos Eisley.”