Solo: all the latest news for the next standalone Star Wars movie – The Verge

The novelization of Solo: A Star Wars Story adds new depth to the film

2018-09-06T10:12:02-04:00

Solo: A Star Wars Story hit theaters earlier this summer, pulling off a satisfactory story, despite a rocky production, and giving a definitive origin to one of the franchise's best-known heroes, Han Solo. If you've seen the film, you know the story: Han Solo escapes a rough childhood as a street rat, gets kicked out of the Imperial Academy, falls into a life of crime with a couple of gangsters, and ends up running into Chewbacca and Lando Calrissian. A newly released novelization of the movie by Mur Lafferty layers on some additional scenes and character development and subtly changes the tone of the story from a straight-up action / heist …

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Question Club: Where should Star Wars go after Solo’s box office disappointment?

2018-06-01T09:35:57-04:00

Over the Memorial Day weekend, Lucasfilm's latest feature, Solo: A Star Wars Story, debuted to disappointing box office returns. It was the weekend's top-grossing movie, but the $103 million domestic take was well below Disney's expectations, set by the openings for recent series installments Rogue One ($155 million) and The Last Jedi ($220 million).

The armchair-quarterbacking started immediately, with trade publications musing over whether Disney overpacked the film-release calendar by piling Star Wars movies atop Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, and whether turning Star Wars into a twice-yearly cinematic outing meant the series was no …

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Solo demonstrates that the Star Wars expanded universe hasn’t been forgotten

2018-05-31T10:50:31-04:00

Solo: A Star Wars Story debuted on May 24th, delivering an origin story for one of the franchise's best-known heroes. The film has underperformed at the box office, setting off a wave of questions about the future of the film franchise. But fans might be interested in a different future entirely - the future of the now non-canon expanded universe, which lives on in a new form in Solo.

Some spoilers for Solo: A Star Wars Story ahead.

When Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, the company made a controversial decision: it officially ended the long-running expanded universe, a complicated series of novels, comics, and video games that kept inter …

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Solo takes Star Wars’ fixation on self-sacrifice in a cavalier new direction

2018-05-29T16:06:37-04:00

Warning: Spoilers for Solo: A Star Wars Story, Rogue One, and The Force Awakens ahead.

Halfway through 2016's Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, I started getting a sinking feeling. I was enjoying the movie, but its intentions were just starting to sink in. Rogue One doesn't fully hide its seams. It's a stitched-together production, but it's easy to get swept up in the narrative. And then it becomes clear that not all of the heroes - maybe none of the heroes - are going to make it out alive. And though I was fine with that, I began wondering how I was going to explain it to my five-year-old, who was sitting next to me.

We'd taken her to see The …

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Chewbacca actor Joonas Suotamo explains the Wookiee mask, movement, and mentality

2018-05-24T12:05:13-04:00

When 31-year-old Finnish actor Joonas Suotamo first stepped into the role of Star Wars' towering, hairy Wookiee character Chewbacca for 2015's The Force Awakens, he repeatedly dodged press questions about which scenes he appeared in. Peter Mayhew, who originated the role in 1977's A New Hope, was also playing Chewbacca in some scenes, but he was having mobility issues and using a cane. Suotamo was eager to tell the story of how he ended up on Star Wars as his first film acting gig. He was a "borderline jobless" basketball player who was living with his mother until he answered a worldwide casting call for a 7-foot actor with blue eyes. But o …

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This video sums up why Ron Howard gets director credit for Solo: A Star Wars Story

2018-05-16T15:03:50-04:00

Last June, Lucasfilm made a stunning announcement: directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller had been fired from the production of Solo: A Star Wars Story, several months into filming, and were replaced by director Ron Howard. This video from Andrew Saladino's YouTube film essay series The Royal Ocean Film Society helps outline why it's Howard, rather than Lord and Miller, who gets credit as director for the film.

Lucasfilm brought Lord and Miller onboard in 2015 to direct the film, and the pair were present throughout the pre-production and well into filming before they were fired and summarily replaced. Since then, it's emerged that Lord …

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Solo: A Star Wars Story — our spoiler-free review

2018-05-15T17:00:02-04:00

For a film franchise that's more than 40 years old, Star Wars has had a surprisingly hard time finding its voice lately. J.J. Abrams' The Force Awakens successfully relaunched the series after a 10-year cinematic hiatus, but some fans felt it copied George Lucas' original 1977 film too closely. The standalone Rogue One: A Star Wars Story attempted to use the fantasy world to tell a gritty wartime tale, but Disney was ultimately unhappy with the result, and writer-director Tony Gilroy was brought in to help Gareth Edwards' film over the finish line. Last year, writer-director Rian Johnson pushed the series in intriguing new directions with St …

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Donald Glover’s Lando Calrissian asked a pointed question about race in Star Wars on last night’s Saturday Night Live

2018-05-06T11:09:31-04:00

Donald Glover was the host of last night's Saturday Night Live, and appeared in one sketch as his character in the upcoming Solo: A Star Wars Story: Lando Calrissian. There, he asked a question that's been raised a lot about the Star Wars universe: where the hell are all the black humans in space?

In the sketch, Glover's charming Lando hosts the "first-ever summit for all black humans," on Naboo, which turns out to include just three attendees. It's a pointed jab at the lack of diversity in the Star Wars films.

The lack of diversity in the franchise is something that's long been pointed out when it comes to the franchise: In her 1980 essay …

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Solo: A Star Wars Story tickets are now on sale

2018-05-04T08:59:36-04:00

For the second time in six months, there's a new Star Wars film hitting theaters. Solo: A Star Wars Story premieres on May 25th, and tickets have just gone on sale.

Sales begin today on what's an unofficial Star Wars holiday: May 4th. You can get tickets for major chains, including AMC, Cinemark, Alamo Drafthouse, and IMAX. You can also pick up tickets through online retailers such as Fandango, Movietickets.com, and Atom Tickets. Most theaters will be screening the film a bit early as well: tickets are on sale for Thursday, May 24th, beginning at 7PM.

There'll also be some special fan events at some of the chains. Theatergoers for AMC thea …

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A new featurette for Solo: A Star Wars Story shows off a reckless Han Solo

2018-04-29T13:58:12-04:00

Lucasfilm has released a featurette called "Becoming Solo," which delves into the world of its upcoming film, Solo: A Star Wars Story, and where its titular hero fits into it.

Solo director Ron Howard opens the video by saying that this film shows off a world that we really haven't seen much of in the franchise: one in which the Empire holds complete control. He notes that everyone is struggling to survive, and that Han is a rare "free spirit."

"You end up getting to see how this guy got to be the way he is," Han Solo actor Alden Ehrenreich says, while his costar Donald Glover (who plays Lando Calrissian), adds that "we're meeting Han righ …

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