Phil Lord and Chris Miller Hint They Were Signed On for Multiple Han Solo STAR WARS Movies
Phil Lord and Chris Miller are riding high right now. Their sci-fi epic Project Hail Mary just hit theaters to massive acclaim, and audiences can't get enough of Ryan Gosling floating through space with his alien best friend.
But in a recent interview, the filmmaking duo let something slip that Star Wars fans are going to want to chew on for a while.
You probably know the story. Lord and Miller were originally tapped to direct Solo: A Star Wars Story, the Alden Ehrenreich-led origin tale of everyone's favorite scruffy-looking nerf herder.
They were fired before the film wrapped and replaced by Ron Howard. It was messy, it was public, and it's been a talking point ever since. What hasn't been discussed as much, though, is whether they were ever supposed to stick around for more than just the one film.
On the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Lord was asked if the two would ever consider jumping back into the Star Wars universe. His response was diplomatic, but loaded:
"We're, at this precise moment, we're releasing a movie in theaters that's original. And one of the opportunities that presents itself when you're not on the hook for making, like, three Han Solo sequels [laughs], is that we have the opportunity to create the franchises of the future. Or, just an original movie that delivers the way the movies we grew up with delivered."
Three Han Solo sequels. That's a specific number to just casually drop into a laugh. Lord could simply be painting a picture of how constraining franchise obligations can feel in general, sure. But it wouldn’t surprise me if they did sign on to multiple films, especially given how Solo ended.
The film closes with a Darth Maul cameo out of nowhere and Han and Chewie conveniently pointing themselves toward Tatooine, which isn't exactly the ending of a story with nowhere left to go. That's the ending of a story someone planned to keep telling.
Unfortunately, we’ll probably never get the continuation of that story. But, at least we’ve got the animated Maul series coming! The Sith Lord isn't disappearing anytime soon. An animated spin-off series, Maul: Shadow Lord, is on the way, set before the events of Solo on the Star Wars timeline.
It isn't a direct continuation, but it does suggest Lucasfilm knows there's still appetite for these characters and this corner of the galaxy.
Whether Lord and Miller's version of that universe would have ever materialized is something we'll never know for sure. What we do know is that they walked away from that world with unfinished business, and now they're channeling that creative energy into something entirely their own, and it turned out awesome!
Project Hail Mary is in theaters now, and by the looks of it, they didn't need a galaxy far, far away after all.