Despite all the internet rumors of Alden Ehrenreich reprising the role of Han Solo in film sequels and various Disney+ shows the actor himself seems to be moving on to other projects like his new science fiction series Brave New World.
While promoting the Peacock original series based on the classic Aldous Huxley novel, Alden suggests to UK outlet the Independent that he is moving on his life beyond Star Wars saying “it’s not a huge part of my life anymore”.
EHRENREICH: “It’s not a huge part of my life anymore. But my sense is that there was a really clear disconnect between the way it was really received and then the stories that came out about it. That we had a troubled production or whatever. And it’s not really a story that the movie did totally fine. It didn’t make a billion dollars but it did fine and people liked it – but that’s not interesting. What’s interesting is: ‘This is the biggest movie of all time and it was absolutely a disaster’.”
“I knew, no matter what happened, that I was putting myself in a situation where people would be saying things about me. But honestly, that whole experience felt like this huge, high-seas adventure.”
I’m not sure these comments will quell fan speculation of him returning to the role in the future, even though, he’ll eventually age-out making it impossible for him to return.
Despite recent rumors over the summer of Donald Glover getting his own Lando show I don’t know if they’ll be able to wrangle Alden back.
Yet another production hiccup on a Star Wars project.
Deadline reports that Tony Gilroy has stepped down as director on the upcoming Cassian Andor series with Black Mirror’s Toby Haynes said to replace him, who will direct the first three episodes.
They are using COVID-19 travel restrictions as the reason for Tony deciding against directing the episodes as he is in New York City. Haynes is said to have been wanted to direct future episodes so it was seemingly an organic choice to hire him. Gilroy is said to be still involved creatively as executive producer and showrunner.
UPDATE:The Playlist adds that Tony hopes to still direct some episodes if the COVID-19 travel restrictions allow him towards the end of the shoot.
Sources close to the project told us a few months back that Gilroy was still hoping to direct episodes, maybe the finale and a few episodes toward the end, but all of that is contingent on safety and how well the COVID situation is in the U.K. and the U.S. Given that the U.K. is going through a second-wave of COVID and implementing new precautions as we speak, it would not surprise me if those plans do not come to fruition as hoped, but we shall see.
Toby is likely best known for directing the Black Mirror episode U.S.S. Callister, which was expected to get a spinoff series of it’s own.
The Disney+ series is a prequel to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story as it will follow the exploits of Rebellion spy Cassian Andor played by Diego Luna with Alan Tudyk reprising the role of quippy droid K2S0.
Cassian Andor’s cast also includes Adria Arjona, Denise Gough, Genevieve O’Reilly, Stellan Skarsgard, and Kyle Soller.
This hiccup would suggest that filming would indeed take place at Pinewood Studios UK as with other Star Wars productions.
The series has yet to be given an official title by Lucasfilm/Disney.
It looks like Boba Fett’s return is now confirmed for The Mandalorian!
The credit and listing comes from a portal from Temuera Morrison’s New Zealand agency Robert Bruce Agency that links to a CV on Showcast (the latter spotted by Making Star Wars) where it clearly states his role is Boba Fett on the series. This is more official than a random website since his own agency is putting this CV together on his behalf.
This would confirm The Hollywood Reporter‘s original report from May that Morrison was playing Boba Fett.
Given Morrison’s age there is an expectation this could be a voice over role given that Boba Fett wouldn’t be pushing 60 as the timeline of the series takes place five years after the events of Star Wars: Return of The Jedi. That is unless they attempt to de-age the actor digitally.
People have suggested he would be playing Rex from Clone Wars and Rebels because he would be the right age, but this listing says the role is specifically Fett.
In May, it was reported by The Hollywood Reporter that Justified actor Timothy Olyphant joined the series and Slash Film mentioned that he filmed scenes in the Boba Fett armor suggesting the role could be playing Cobb Vanth. Some people believed this was the character approaching Fennec Shand on Tatooine at the end of The Gunslinger.
Our sources have confirmed to us that Olyphant filmed scenes wearing Boba Fett’s Mandalorian armor for the upcoming second season of The Mandalorian.
Vanth is the self-appointed sheriff of the Tatooine-based settlement Freetown. He wears a mysterious set of Mandalorian armor that was acquired from Jawas who scavenged the wreckage of Jabba the Hutt’s sail barge shortly after the events of Return of the Jedi.
The second season will begin airing on Disney+ starting October 30th.
Eagle-eyed fans also spotted the Boba Fett armor on the back of Mando’s speeder in the trailer.
The Mandalorian and the Child continue their journey, facing enemies and rallying allies as they make their way through a dangerous galaxy in the tumultuous era after the collapse of the Galactic Empire.
Earlier in the year, Obi-Wan Kenobi actor Ewan McGregor said on the red carpet of Birds of Prey that the Star Wars series unofficially referred to as Kenobi would begin shooting in January of 2021.
Ewan recently spoke with Entertainment Tonight to promote Apple TV+’s Long Way Up, where he revealed that production on Kenobi has been pushed to the spring and is indeed being planned as a single standalone season.
MCGREGOR: “Spring next year we start, I’m really excited about it. It’s gonna be great, I think. As I understand, it’s a standalone season. We’ll see. Who knows?”
While speaking with ACE Universe back in June he confirmed that they would be implementing the StageCraft technology used on The Mandalorian.
MCGREGOR: “[The prequels] were all blue screen and green screen and it was hard to imagine, but nowadays I think things have moved on so much, and I think a lot of what you see is gonna be what we see on the set. I don’t know if you’ve seen the behind-the-scenes of The Mandalorian series, but they employ that incredible screen…it’s pretty amazing. It makes you feel like you’re in the place, it’s going to feel realer for us, as actors. And I think we’ll be using some of that technology on our show.”
Screenwriter Joby Harold (King Arthur: Legend of The Sword, Army of The Dead) had been recently hired to do rewrites for the Star Wars series after there were reported delays due to script issues.
It’s still set to be directed by Deborah Chow (The Mandalorian).
While the Cassian Andor series has been hiring multiple actors for their cast, the Kenobi series has yet to have any names announced. The Mandalorian beings airing on Disney+ starting on October 30th and its third season is already in the pre-production stages.
With Star Wars in the rearview for actress Dasiy Ridley, she is dishing about behind the scenes development of the trilogy and her character Rey to Jimmy Kimmel Live guest host Josh Gad. Revealing that Rey’s parentage wasn’t always meant to be that of the grandchild of Emperor Palpatine (the daughter of his son/clone) and that she was indeed going to be connected to Obi-Wan Kenobi at some point.
RIDLEY: “No. At the beginning, there was toying with an Obi-Wan connection and there were like different versions. And then it went to she was no one and then it came to Episode 9 and J.J. pitched me the film and was like ‘Oh yeah, Palpatine is granddaddy’ and I’m like ‘awesome’. Two weeks later he was like ‘We’re not sure’, so it kept changing. Even when we were filming and I wasn’t sure what the answer was going to be.”
Interestingly enough, before Star Wars: The Force Awakens began filming there was a rumbling that there was a female character being cast that was a relative of Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and this persisted throughout the questioning of Rey’s family origin.
This example simply just points out how indecisive they were about most stuff with the films, which isn’t terribly shocking given that George Lucas did a lot of the same stuff on the original trilogy. However, it would also likely add to the narrative that everyone was scrambling to make a competing version of Episode 9 after Colin Trevorrow’s Star Wars: Duel of The Fates after he exited the film.
Where the films are going is a little unclear despite multiple teases from Kathleen Kennedy that the exploration of Star Wars’ past ala The Old Republic is an option they’ve considered.
With the Star Wars franchise behind him, John Boyega has spoken with GQ about his experience making the recent trilogy and he basically feels that Lucasfilm/Disney had no idea what to with his character Finn in the two sequels after making him a huge deal during the marketing leading up to the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
BOYEGA: “You get yourself involved in projects and you’re not necessarily going to like everything. [But] what I would say to Disney is do not bring out a black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are and then have them pushed to the side. It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up.”
“Like, you guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver. You knew what to do with these other people, but when it came to Kelly Marie Tran, when it came to John Boyega, you know fuck all. So what do you want me to say? What they want you to say is, ‘I enjoyed being a part of it. It was a great experience…’ Nah, nah, nah. I’ll take that deal when it’s a great experience. They gave all the nuance to Adam Driver, all the nuance to Daisy Ridley. Let’s be honest. Daisy knows this. Adam knows this. Everybody knows. I’m not exposing anything.”
It is worth noting that during the release of The Force Awakens, John Boyega received a massive backlash from racists furious that a black actor was playing a Stromtrooper and there was call for a boycott claiming “white genocide”. The main gripe seemed to be folks were upset that a black character was getting a spotlight in a predominantly white franchise, despite Mace Windu and Lando Calrissian being established characters.
I imagine most people forgot this was even a thing, but here is a refresher of what happened after the first trailer reveal.
This was a small amount of people but it’s hard to ignore that Finn’s role in the subsequent sequels was drastically decreased and he became more of a supporting player like Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron. It would be hard to argue that Finn was one of the three main characters in The Force Awakens and his diminished arc was a little upsetting given that Colin Trevorrow’s Duel of The Fates would have had Finn in much more heroic and impactful role.
There is a strong possibility to avoid more racially-fueled backlash they rolled-back Finn a bit in Star Wars: The Last Jedi as he was relegated to a side character.
Kelly Marie Tran experienced her own wave of racist online bullying from the toxic side of fandom in the wake of her role as Rose Tico in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which saw racial slurs being mixed into complaints of her performance and how the character was written.
This led the actress to quit social media.
Done with this disingenuous bullshit. You know the difference between not liking a movie and hatefully harassing a woman so bad she has to get off social media. And you know which of those two we’re talking about here.
In retrospect, Disney seemingly caved to both these weird racist reactions to Finn and Rose as they both saw their hierarchy in the franchise diminished, they also happened to be the two minority characters in the trilogy. Finn’s force sensitively that was teased in Star Wars: The Force Awakens was never fully realized and Rose’s screentime in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker essentially became a glorified cameo after having such a significant role in the previous film.
People also noticed that Disney’s merchandise for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker failed to include Rose leading up to the release, a possible attempt of an erasure of the character in light of the racist backlash from the last film.
It certainly feels like Disney just placed the characters into the background and pulled back on giving them a substantial journey to avoid anymore negative outrage and possibly in their minds targeted harassment. However, I think the latter would be a little harder to believe.
Disney and Lucasfilm certainly said how important the characters were in the press rounds but wasn’t really reflected on the screen.
John certainly is allowed to express his feelings and we were also frustrated by the creative choices made with his character after all the potential on display in The Force Awakens.
Yesterday, some really bad Star Wars rumors were making the rounds from the most unreliable source, YouTube streamer Grace Randolph. She was suggesting that because a trailer for The Mandalorian Season 2 didn’t magically appear during the NBA playoffs that there were extensive Season 2 reshoots ahead and most likely delays.
Stating that Disney was unhappy with the upcoming season.
However, it looks like she was again exposed as a huckster peddling in false information as Disney officially announced today on the show’s Twitter account that episodes will begin airing on October 30th on Disney+. This news should comfort those that were silly enough to fall for those attention seeking lies.
They also includes a new logo for the second season.
Lucasfilm is hard at work on Season 3 prep with writing scripts and pre-production stages as the pandemic has shuffled the schedule a little. The Ronin revealed last week that Jon Favreau is expected to direct at least one episode and that Emmy-nominated production designer Andrew L. Jones is confirmed to be returning.
Once the promotion for Mulan’s Premier Access on Disney+ is over there is a strong expectation that Disney will release a trailer and marketing wave for The Mandalorian.
Could we finally see Lucasfilm tackle a cinematic version of The Old Republic era?
While speaking with The Wrap, Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy recently talked about the future of Star Wars suggesting an interest of exploring other eras in the universe as they’re currently stepping back to figure what they want to do as they focus more on the Disney+ shows for the next couple of years.
Specifically mentioning the mythology of Star Wars spanning over 25,000 years, an obvious reference to The Old Republic.
KENNEDY: “And now we’re stepping back. Stories have been told within this universe over the last 40-odd years, and there’s now the realization that this is a mythology that actually spans about 25,000 years, when you really start to look at all the different stories that have been told, whether it’s in books and games.”
“We just need the time to step back and really absorb what George has created, and then start to think about where things might go. That’s what we’ve been doing, and we’ve been having a great deal of fun doing it, and meeting with lots of different filmmakers and talent. There’s so many fans out there and so many filmmakers that have been influenced by Star Wars for so long that it’s a fantastic opportunity to get a sense of who wants to be a part of this. So that’s what we’ve been doing.”
This isn’t the first time Kennedy has teased an interest in going backwards with Star Wars mythology, when asked by MTV News about development on something in The Old Republic, Kennedy confirmed development but stopped short on giving any details about when that could happen.
KENNEDY: “You know, we talk about that all the time. Yes, we are developing something to look at.”
You can see that exchange from last year’s Star Wars Celebration below.
#Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy talked to us about the future of #StarWars – including a Knights of the Old Republic movie and female filmmakers taking the helm, as well as Palpatine’s surprise return in the trailer for @StarWars#EpisodeIXpic.twitter.com/HCjEhdlRv7
Last year, BuzzFeed reported that the Altered Carbon series creator Laeta Kalogridis was writing a Star War film that was set within The Old Republic and could potentially become a trilogy.
There was also some interesting news this week as it was announced via Deadline that Netflix has cancelled Altered Carbon after two seasons allowing Kalogridis to move on to other things, like this potential Old Republic trilogy for Lucasfilm/Disney.
Thor: Ragnarok and Thor: Love & Thunder director Taika Waititi is officially helming a Star Wars movie for the studio, but details about his project are scarce. He’ll be co-writing with Oscar nominated screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns (Last Night In Soho, 1917).
We still don’t know where in the timeline that film will be taking place.
The scope of The Old Republic would allow Lucasfilm and filmmakers to create a brand new path for the Star Wars film franchise since they could jump into certain points in the past and not being beholden to the original trilogy along with forced to connect to it because there is so much time between the eras.
I guess we’ll have to wait to get some solid details from Lucasfilm what they are planning on doing.
The Ronin has learned The Mandalorian Season 3 is already gathering up crew members and can confirm we will see the return of production designer Andrew L. Jones, who worked on the previous two seasons of the hit live-action Star Wars series airing on Disney+.
Jones recently earned a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Production Design for a Narrative Program (Half-Hour) for his work on the first season of The Mandalorian.
Jon Favreau is already confirmed to be writing and producing the next season as well.
We are hearing Jon is expected to direct at least one episode in the third season, but haven’t been able to confirm that aspect.
Season 2 is still set to begin airing on Disney+ sometime in October according to Disney and an official trailer is likely around the corner.
Production on Season 3 seems to have been delayed due to the pandemic but there is plenty of prep going on.
Deadline has word that up-and-coming actress Adria Arjona has been tapped for an undisclosed role in the untitled Cassian Andor series from Lucasfilm set within the Star Wars universe. Andor, a character from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is a Rebellion spy and operates mostly in a very grey-area. The series is expected to play-up the spy aspect of the Rebels and Andor played by Diego Luna.
Arjona’s recent credits include Triple Frontier, Narcos, True Detective, Pacific Rim: Uprising, 6 Underground, and will be seeing alongside Jared Leto in Sony’s Spider-Man spinoff Morbius. She’ll be joining Luna, Alan Tudyk, Denise Gough, Genevieve O’Reilly, Stellan Skarsgard, and Kyle Soller.
Filming had been originally expected to begin this summer before the pandemic delayed multiple film and television productions.
THE RONIN 