What the 'Young Han Solo' casting rumors tell us about the 'Star Wars' spinoff
LOS ANGELES -- "Han Solo. I'm captain of the Millennium Falcon."
These were the first words that Harrison Ford spoke in Star Wars: A New Hope, a.k.a. the youngest version of Han Solo we've ever seen. Until May 25, 2018, that is, when Disney/Lucasfilm's "Young Han Solo" movie comes to theaters.
And according to The Hollywood Reporter, the search for the young Corellian smuggler has narrowed, with three actors having recently tested for the role in London. They are Hail Caesar! breakout Alden Ehrenreich (above, left); Transformers: Age of Extinction star Jack Reynor (above, center) and Taron Egerton, star of Kingsman: The Secret Service and Eddie the Eagle.
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THR says those three were taking meetings and doing tests, but that others may still be in the mix. Disney did not respond to Mashable's request for comment.
But the news tells us a few things about the direction Disney/Lucasfilm is going with this project -- namely that our "young" Han Solo won't be that much younger than the one we met in 1977.
Ford was 33 when A New Hope started shooting in March of 1976, and would turn 34 that July. Ehrenreich and Egerton are both 26, while Reynor is 24.
Add two years for the 2018 release, and you've only got a 5- to 7-year difference (if the age of the actor counts for anything) between the moment the credits roll on the first "young" Han Solo film to the moment that Luke and Ben Kenobi make first contact in the Cantina.
So wherever we pick up Young Solo, there's a good chance that, over the course of a movie or three, his arc will lead him to the point where he finally bumps into the Rebellion.
How many solo Solo films does Disney/Lucasfilm intend to make? For now it's just the one, but if things work out like they've tended to do for Disney lately, this could be a very lucrative standalone franchise. And by way of their Marvel gambit, they know something about locking up talent for multiple films from the outset.
It also tells us that Disney/Lucasfilm is willing to look deep down the Hollywood bench for its mini-Ford -- because these guys are not household names. Yet.
Taron Egerton
While Egerton's profile has been raised thanks to the cult-hit Kingsman and its forthcoming sequel, he's hardly a movie star. He will be if he takes the vest.
The Englishman is dapper, charming and incredibly humble and effusively friendly in person -- kind of the opposite of Ford, really.
Can you see it?
Jack Reynor
The youngest of the three, Reynor played a human in Age of Extinction, which is a bit like playing an Ewok in Star Wars. Blink and you'd have missed his big moment in the trailer:
(Yep, that was pretty much it.)
But the 24-year-old Irishman has range, which he most recently showed in the Sundance breakout Sing Street, and he looks an awful lot like Chris Pratt. Which doesn't really say anything at all about Han Solo, it just can't be ignored.
Alden Ehrenreich
Which finally brings us to Alden Ehrenreich, the only American in this group, the guy who probably bears the most resemblance to a younger Ford, and the guy who utterly stole the last Coen Brothers film, Hail Caesar!, with a supporting role that would make you think this kid can do anything.
The Beautiful Creatures star also has some powerful friends.
Ehrenreich is the kid who Steven Spielberg himself pulled from relative obscurity when he spotted the teenager in a Bat Mitzvah video; Ehrenreich has also consorted with the Coppola family and has worked closely with Warren Beatty on his untitled Howard Hughes film, slated for later this year.
None of these seems like an odds-on bet, and we could surely see the likes of early favorite Ansel Elgort pop up in later casting rounds.
But if we had to pick?
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Josh Dickey is Mashable's Entertainment Editor, leading Mashable's TV, music, gaming and sports reporters as well as writing movie features and reviews.Josh has been the Film Editor at Variety, Entertainment Editor at The Associated Press and Managing Editor at TheWrap.com.A finalist for the Los Angeles Press Club's Best Entertainment Feature in 2015 for "Everyone is Altered: The Secret Hollywood Procedure that Fooled Us for Years," Josh received his BA in Journalism from The University of Minnesota.In between screenings, he can be found skating longboards, shredding guitar and wandering the streets of his beloved downtown Los Angeles.
