After Disney purchased Lucasfilm, the Mouse House revealed their ambitious plans to deliver a Star Wars movie on an annual basis, despite the very real possibility that it could eventually result in overkill. The studio must have been rubbing their hands in glee when The Force Awakens and Rogue One combined to earn over $3 billion at the box office, but the wheels swiftly started getting a little shaky.
Takings dropped by over $700 million when The Last Jedi arrived in 2017, with Rian Johnson’s sweeping changes to the mythology splitting fans right down the middle, and the following summer, the second Anthology effort bombed hard to become the lowest-grossing live-action Star Wars movie ever.
Plagued by a turbulent production that saw original directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller replaced by the reliable Ron Howard with just three weeks of filming left, Solo: A Star Wars Story is far from a bad movie. It just felt like a completely unnecessary one that filled in some narrative gaps that didn’t need to be filled and answered questions that nobody was asking.
Despite failing to crack $400 million globally, fans have been voicing their desire for a Solo sequel over the last two years, even though they didn’t show up in large enough numbers to make it a viable proposition the first time around. And in a recent interview, Howard hinted that the campaign may one day yield results.
“No rumblings, though, and this is not a spoiler or anything, but I think there is interest in those characters. I think there’s interest in the gangster world somewhere down the line. But I can assure you there is nothing being developed right now for a movie or Disney Plus. But, one great thing is there has been a lot of affection shown for Solo, and so of course that keeps boding well for them to eventually turn it around.”
There were hints of an interesting mythology in Solo: A Star Wars Story, and the director is right that many people would love to explore more of the galaxy’s underworld. A gangster movie or TV series set in that pocket of the universe has all sorts of potential, but we’ll just have to wait and see if Disney have any interest in bringing these characters back to the screen.
