Alden Ehrenreich is your next Han Solo

LONDON -- It was the worst-kept secret in Hollywood: Alden Ehrenreich, an actor best known for playing an actor playing a cowboy, has been tapped to play young Han Solo.

Ehrenreich's role as Solo in an untitled Star Wars spinoff movie, which starts filming early next year, was confirmed Sunday at Star Wars Celebration in London's giant ExCel center.

"He was literally the first person to audition," said Phil Lord, who is directing the Solo project alongside his Lego Movie co-director Chris Miller.

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Despite that fact, Lord said, the pair auditioned more than 3,000 potential Han Solos over 6 months. "We looked in cowboy bars" as well as acting schools and casting calls, Lord told a crowd of 4,000 people.

Which seems entirely appropriate, as Ehrenreich plays an actor playing a cowboy in the Coen brothers' loving pastiche of 1950s Hollywood, Hail Caesar.

Ehrenreich apparently clinched the role when he was photographed on the set of the Millennium Falcon next to an actor playing Chewbacca, Lord and Miller revealed. (They didn't reveal whether their younger Chewie would be played by old hand Peter Mayhew.)

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Of course, Ehrenreich will be stepping into some big shoes -- those of Harrison Ford, whose star-making turn as the galactic smuggler in the original Star Wars made for one of the most iconic and virile performances in movie history.

The filmmakers, at least, appear to have nailed the character in their description:

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Reaction on Twitter was predictably divided -- with some grumbling that the Celebration panel had not told us anything new, others doubting that Ehrenreich could ever live up to the role, and still others prepared to give him a chance.

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The news came during a "Future Filmmakers" panel at the close of Celebration, which was notable largely for how little news it contained.

Director Rian Johnson spoke about filming the still-untitled Star Wars Episode VIII; Force Awakens stars John Boyega, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher also joined the crew on stage.

Johnson appeared to confirm that both Hamill and Fisher would be in Episode IX, which will be directed by Colin Trevorrow (Jurassic World).

Asked whether they were as raucous on the set as they were on stage at Celebration, Johnson responded: "ask Colin, they're his problem." (Episode VIII principal photography wrapped earlier this summer.)

The untitled Han Solo project is being scripted by Lawrence Kasdan and his son Jake. Kasdan senior was the co-screenwriter on Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.