Michael K. Williams has officially been cut from the Han Solo anthology movie amid ongoing reshoots.
Deadline has the scoop, revealing that Williams, who had originally signed on to play a “kick-ass” half-human, half-animal in the Star Wars spinoff, bowed out of the project due to a recent scheduling conflict with The Red Sea Diving Resort. Those two projects are now beginning to overlap, no thanks to Disney and Lucasfilm’s decision to replace erstwhile Han Solo directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller with the Oscar-winning Ron Howard, and delay production as a result.
Almost two months have passed since that sudden switcheroo, and things have been moving a mile a minute ever since. Now, with reshoots looming and Michael K. Williams unavailable due to other commitments, Lucasfilm has decided to cut his character entirely.
Here’s what the actor told Deadline:
I felt great about what I created with the directors that I worked with. It is what it is. I don’t think that me not being in the Star Wars family is final. I left with a very good taste in my mouth about the whole family, and I hope that I left a good taste in their mouth. They’re a great group of people, the Lucas family.
Among those still on board are Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones), Donald Glover, Thandie Newton, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Joonas Suotamo, with Alden Ehrenreich due to take point as the young nerf herder.
But to his credit, Williams has no hard feelings about being dropped from the cast sheet, telling Deadline that:
When Ron Howard got hired to finish out the film, there were some reshoot issues that needed to be done in regards to my character, in order for it to match the new direction which the producers wanted Ron to carry the film in. And that would have required me on a plane a month ago to London, to Pinewood, to do reshoots. But I’m here, on location in Africa. It’s scheduling. I’m not going to be back on the market until the end of November after [his SundanceTV series] Hap and Leonard, and for them to wait that long for me, that would have pushed back the release date, which I believe is in May 2018. They wanted me now; I couldn’t go. So they had to clip-clip-clip.
Lucasfilm’s second Star Wars anthology film may not have a title to call its own just yet, but we do know it’ll be with us on May 25th, 2018 – sans Michael K. Williams, unfortunately.
Tell us, what are your thoughts on this latest piece of news from the Han Solo origin story? Let us know in the usual place.
