Solo: A Star Wars Story was made “too soon” after audiences had last seen the iconic Han Solo played by Harrison Ford, outgoing Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy has suggested.
Asked by Deadline if she had any regrets from her tenure as chief of Disney’s production company behind Star Wars, Kennedy said she had belatedly realized that “you cannot replace Han Solo, at least right now.”
Solo: A Star Wars Story launched in 2018, just three years after Harrison Ford reprised his role as legendary scoundrel Han Solo in Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens. (Ford would then cameo in the role one final time in 2019’s Episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker.)
Despite positive reviews, Solo was a commercial flop, earning just $393 million back on a budget of at least $275 million. In comparison, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story earned $1.05 billion at the box office, against a budget of between $200-280 million.
Solo’s status as a box office bomb immediately froze Lucasfilm’s plans for more standalone Star Wars films — and other continuations in general. Indeed, this year’s big screen Disney+ spin-off The Mandalorian and Grogu will be the first Star Wars movie to launch since the divisive Rise of Skywalker, following a gap of seven years.
“I don’t really have any regrets,” Kennedy said, reflecting on her time at the top of Lucasfilm. “Well, maybe a bit of regret about Solo: A Star Wars Story,” she continued. “I brought [screenwriter] Larry Kasdan in on, and we were so excited about that idea. And then when you’re into something and you realize fundamentally, conceptually, you cannot replace Han Solo, at least right now.
“As wonderful as Alden Ehrenreich was,” Kennedy added, “and he really was good, and is a wonderful actor, we put him in an impossible situation. And once you’re in it and once you’re committed, you’ve got to carry on. I think I have a bit of regret about that, but not about the moviemaking and filmmaking. I don’t have regrets about that. I just think that conceptually, we did it too soon.”
As part of the same interview, Kennedy listed out a swathe of other upcoming Star Wars projects she had overseen during her tenure, though many have now been canned or placed on the back burner. One of these is the long-gestating Solo: A Star Wars Story spin-off centering on Donald Glover’s incarnation of Lando — who clearly is believed to have had an easier time of things than Ehrenreich’s attempt at Han Solo.
“I think the ones by Taika and Donald are still somewhat alive,” Kennedy noted. “That’s going to really be up to the new team to figure out.” Glover’s Lando project was originally discussed as far back as 2018, though little has been heard of it since. Kennedy will be replaced in her role by long-term Star Wars writer and director Dave Filoni and veteran Lucasfilm executive Lynwen Brennan, who will handle the company’s creative and financial sides separately.
Image credit: Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
