Will Solo: A Star Wars Story Ever Get A Sequel?
While fans have been calling for a sequel to Solo: A Star Wars Story, it is unlikely that one will ever be made.
Before the sequel trilogy took Star Wars films completely off the rails, we got two very different films that helped us explore this famous galaxy far, far away. One of those was Star Wars: Rogue One, a movie that was never destined to get a sequel but whose prequel series Andor has been a massive hit. Comparatively, Star Wars: A Solo Story was clearly set up to get a sequel, but despite growing fan demand, director Ron Howard told NME Magazine that not only is a sequel not “a Lucasfilm priority” but that “the only discussion that I’m aware of about a sequel for Solo is coming from the fans at this point.”
Honestly, that’s a shame for many reasons. When the casting for the movie was first announced, many fans scoffed at the idea of anyone stepping into Harrison Ford’s boots to play the iconic character Han Solo. But Alden Ehrenreich ended up doing an unexpectedly amazing job, and he has previously indicated that he’d be game for a sequel (then again, when your last major role was in Cocaine Bear, returning to Star Wars would look pretty good).
And the rest of the core cast of the film was a veritable murderer’s row of talent. Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke really shines as love interest turned crime lord Qi’ra, and her relationship with Han Solo helped explain how he became such a cynic at a young age. A sequel movie could help explore her character’s time with the Crimson Dawn and her relationship with Darth Maul, but now that an official novel is about to come out (Crimson Climb by E.K. Johnston) canonically exploring this time in Qi’ra’s life, we’re less likely than ever to see her story continue in a sequel.
And while Woody Harrelson was his usual awesome self in this movie, playing a seasoned spacer who helps give Han Solo his edge, the most surprising performance in the film came from Donald Glover, who played a younger version of Lando Calrissian. Glover gives every scene a sexy swagger, and we couldn’t help but laugh at his seemingly romantic relationship with the droid L3-37 (hilariously voiced by future Indiana Jones star Phoebe Waller-Bridge).
Glover was so good in this role that we were going to get an entire Disney+ spinoff series focused on his character, but it was canceled like so many other Star Wars projects after fan backlash to The Rise of Skywalker as well as the financial failure of this Han Solo spinoff.
There are major financial considerations for why we’ll likely never get a sequel to Solo: A Star Wars Story. The film underperformed at the box office, earning a scant $393.2 million against its budget of $275 million. Throw in the immense costs of marketing this film, and Solo actually lost Disney quite a bit of money, likely closing the door on any official returns to this particular corner of the galaxy.
The financial failure of Solo: A Star Wars Story also killed the odds of us getting a sequel in a way that nobody could have predicted. Before that movie bombed, Lucasfilm had ambitious plans for many projects, including an Obi-Wan Kenobi movie and a Boba Fett movie that they later adapted into television series. Lucasfilm pivoting to focus on television helped give us shows like The Mandalorian, but after the show started using de-aging technology to show us a young Mark Hamill, it became clear that we would probably never see a new actor cast to play anyone from the famous original trilogy.
Still, we can’t help but fondly think about the Solo: A Star Wars Story sequel that could have been. This was a movie that not only brought Darth Maul back to the big screen but had him order Qi’ra to meet him on the planet Dathomir. As hardcore fans know, Dathomir is a planet full of sexy goth Nightsisters that ride around on Rancors while using The Force and, quite frankly, a single shot of that would have been cooler than almost anything we got in the sequel trilogy.
As much as we’d like a sequel to Solo: A Star Wars Story, we should maybe consider it a good sign that Lucasfilm would rather focus on different characters and stories. As the death of Carrie Fisher reminds us, the actors that brought the beloved original characters to life aren’t getting any younger, and neither are the fans who first fell in love with them. Disney’s only shot at keeping this franchise going is to focus on new characters that appeal to a new generation of fans, and it’s hard to fault the media giant for shooting first when it comes to killing Star Wars spinoffs and sequels that focus primarily on legacy characters.
