Variety reports today that three actresses have tested for the young Han Solo spinoff. Tessa Thompson (Creed), Zoe Kravitz (Mad Max: Fury Road) and Naomi Scott (the upcoming Power Rangers) have all tested in London for the film’s female lead, they say.
Both Thompson and Kravitz are familiar faces who’ve have been around for a bit. I remember Thompson from her turn on Veronica Mars, but she’s recently got a lot of buzz with roles in Creed, Selma, and the upcoming Thor: Ragnarok. Kravitz has a heavy genre resume in addition to Mad Max, with roles in X-Men: First Class, the Divergent films and the upcoming Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them trilogy.
Scott isn’t quite as well known, but she was in Fox’s 2011 time-travel dinosaur drama Terra Nova and The Martian before landing the role of the Pink Ranger in 2017’s Power Rangers.
Variety also addresses the rumor about Donald Glover and the Lando Calrissian role, but there’s apparently a “second round of tests” in the offing. Until now, Glover is the only name that’s been publicly linked to the role, though The Hollywood Reporter now says that O’Shea Jackson Jr. (Straight Outta Compton) and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Netflix’s The Get Down) are also finalists.
Whoever wins the role(s) will be playing against Alden Ehrenreich’s Han Solo. Directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the untitled film is currently scheduled for a May 2018 release.
Has to be Sana, right?
That’s the common speculation right now, but I am extremely skeptical.
We don’t know the timeline of when this script was being written, but we do know it’s a Lawrence Kasdan (and son) effort. And I just don’t see Kasdan reading/knowing about the comics, even the canon ones.
So if Kasdan probably didn’t pull the character from the comic, we then have to assume it was the Story Group’s doing. Did they ask Marvel to include a character from a movie that was still (as of June 2015, when Star Wars #6 came out) years and years on from the release date? (Or even further away, because the Josh Trank stuff would have still been in flux when all this was being planned.) The Marvel folks aren’t going to be privy to something that far out. And given how close to their chests the SG has been playing things – I just can’t see them slipping a major character or huge clues (if we assume this is the fake marriage story) to a movie that was that far off into a comic book.
If we were ten years into the new EU instead of 3, or it was a Gary Whitta or a Rian Johnson writing it, I’d say maybe. But given the players here? I wouldn’t count on it.
Plus, there’s the factor of – don’t we want more woman of color? Even if she does turn out to be a smuggler or scoundrel type, this character may still turn out to be nothing like Sana. Or Rae Sloane, for that matter, to look at another EU WOC who would be around in the time period. (Though, I think, also unlikely for similar reasons.) Why must we immediately jump to assume this is a character we already know?
So I won’t say it’s not possible, but I don’t think it’s very likely.
Excellent response, thanks for taking the time to do that!
Sloane would also be great. I am one of those fans who loves the SG concept and the connections between the media. I only think Sana because she’s stuck around in the comic, making me believe the history between her and Han runs pretty deep. This could be the “beginning” of that story between the two.
I agree the more Women and more diverse women we can include the better, I just want the film to be centered around an important/iconic Han story, and if Sana is somehow related to the changing hands of the Falcon between Han and Lando, this story could be a powerful and important one that we “feel” for a while throughout the different media.
Thanks!
I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently – and the Tumblr version of this post is currently getting a lot of attention and people are assuming the role is Sana and therefore none of the actresses are dark-skinned enough. Which I can sympathize with! But we don’t know she’s Sana, not that such a move would be outside the Hollyword norms. (And the likeness issue is another reason I doubt the Story Group would put the character in a comic so early. A book maybe, but not a comic.)
This being a movie pretty much guarantees that it’ll be an iconic or important Han story. And there’s nothing that says the Sana/marriage story can’t be explored later. Marvel hasn’t done any minis with their original characters yet, but I doubt it’s out of the question. (And we still don’t know what that new ongoing is, although… ::glances at NYCC::)