Han Solo Movie Casting Spoilers and a Fancy New Release Date

Before The Force Awakens blew the lid off traditional box office models, Disney and Lucasfilm had always planned to shift their Star Wars films from December release dates to the more traditional early summer blockbuster season.  Episode VIII originally had a May 2017 release set until this January when Lucasfilm shifted it to December 2017.  In hindsight, the move was quite shrewd.  In order to market effectively for a film coming this May, Disney would've had to overlap with their Rogue One marketing, undercutting their risky venture outside of the main saga, and potentially confusing more casual moviegoers.  With the fantastic box office success of Rogue One, Disney has now decided to plant their flag even more firmly in December by changing their still untitled Han Solo movie from May to December of 2018 (Honestly, if the title ends up being anything but simply Solo for the character's first solo adventure, it would be a missed opportunity).  For the foreseeable future, December will be Lucasfilm territory, and the poor returns for both Passengers and Assassin's Creed this year should serve as a warning for any studio willing to challenge their dominance.

In addition to the date change, Variety reported an interesting casting rumor earlier today (original article here) that provides some fuel for speculation about the space scoundrel's spin-off.  Aside from the casting news, the following is all conjecture, but if you would like to remain completely spoiler-free, you may want to stop reading now.

Apparently, Woody Harrelson is being considered for a mentor role opposite Alden Ehrenreich's younger Han Solo.  I'm of mixed feelings about this news.  On one hand, I love the idea of Woody sliming it up as a dirty no-good rotten Obi-Wan Kenobi-type for scruffy-looking nerf herders.  Harrelson has exactly the kind of easy charisma that would feel at home in the seedy underbelly of the Star Wars universe, and I could see him pulling off a proto-Solo criminal that the man himself might aspire toward.  On the other hand, does Han Solo really need a mentor?  Are they shoe-horning yet another hero's journey into Han Solo's backstory?  This territory was already mined to particularly good effect in Guardians of the Galaxy between Chris Pratt's man-child version of Han Solo and Yondu, Michael Rooker's blue space pirate.  Their interplay was one of the best parts of that film, but the last thing I think a Han Solo movie should be doing is imitating its imitators.  

Now, I'm not one of those people who opposes this movie on principle.  I think it's absolutely possible to make a good Han Solo movie without Harrison Ford.  But I do think it is an uphill battle.  The good news is that directing team Phil Lord and Chris Miller have essentially made a career out of crafting better-than-they-have-any-right-to-be films from seemingly terrible ideas (21 Jump Street, The Lego Movie), and Lucasfilm likely had that in mind when they tapped them for this movie.  Also, Lawrence Kasdan helped write the script with his son, and if anyone could understand the character as much as or more than Harrison Ford, it would be the man who helped write The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and The Force Awakens.  We'll have to wait and see what Harrelson's role will really be if he does indeed sign on to the picture.  So far, Disney has mostly mastered the tricky balance between nostalgia and invention in the new Star Wars films with only a few hiccups (really Force Awakens?  Another Death Star?), so hopefully I'm wrong and this move will feel fresh and compelling.  

I guess we're stuck waiting until December 2018 to find out.