Trivia / Solo

• Ability over Appearance:
  • Alden Ehrenreich looks and sounds almost nothing like a young Harrison Ford, he was cast based on the strength of his performance. Ron Howard stated he had to be someone who could effectively channel the spirit of Han Solo, rather than just be a Harrison Ford impersonator.
  • While Donald Glover has a close enough resemblance to a young Billy Dee Williams, Glover is noticeably shorter than Williams (Glover is 5'8", Williams is 6'). Most will agree that he absolutely nailed the role of Lando regardless.
• Acting in the Dark: Phoebe Waller-Bridge (L3-37's voice actress) has stated in interviews that she doesn't know what a droid is. Because of this, she played L3 as if she were a human.
• Actor-Inspired Element:
  • Donald Glover and Phoebe Waller-Bridge themselves jointly came up with the idea that L3 and Lando would have unresolved feelings for one another. Jon Kasdan loved it and added L3 and Qi'ra's conversation in the cockpit of the Falcon together to expand on Glover and Waller-Bridge's idea.
  • Sam Witwer had the chance to correct a minor continuity error for his role. When a producer told him that Maul was going to draw his double-bladed lightsaber from The Phantom Menace, Witwer pointed out that lightsaber had been destroyed in his duel with Obi-Wan, and so suggested Maul instead draw either the Darksaber or Maul's broken cane-saber from Rebels. The animators chose the latter.
• Approval of God:
  • Harrison Ford was delighted with Alden Ehrenreich's performance, saying he "couldn't be happier." Ron Howard later revealed in fact that when visiting the set, Ford put a hand on Ehrenreich’s shoulder and said "Great job kid".
  • Bryce Dallas Howard (who would later direct an episode of The Mandalorian) praised her father's efforts and called Solo an "awesome new installment in the Star Wars franchise".
• Ascended Fanon: Solo officially canonizes a popular fan theory about Han Solo's famous Kessel Run. For years, seemingly every Star Wars fan had their own favorite explanation for why Han bragged about making the Kessel Run "in less than twelve parsecs" in A New Hope, since a parsec is a unit of distance rather than time. The shooting script states it was an intentional error, meant to demonstrate that Han was just talking out of his ass; however, some fans wrote it off as a surreptitious test of Luke and Obi-Wan's knowledge of space travel and he wanted to see if they would correct him, or he was bragging about the Millennium Falcon's navigational capabilities by referring to the specific route that he took through the Kessel system. The last explanation was incorporated into the film as a major plot point: Han once took a particularly dangerous shortcut through the Maw Cluster while smuggling valuable cargo from Kessel, allowing him to complete the run in a much shorter distance than normal.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: When Paul Bettany found out that Ron Howard was directing the film, he asked him a role in the movie, even if it was something as small as a nameless Stormtrooper. He ended up getting the role of Dryden Vos.
• Box Office Bomb:
  • A first for the Star Wars franchise in that it actually lost money rather than simply having a gross that fell below projections like Attack of the Clones or The Last Jedi (and both films were still very profitable). Solo had a budget of $275 million as a result of the Troubled Production causing the budget to balloon, and would have needed to make around $600 million to break even. With an estimated final gross of $400 million worldwide and a domestic opening weekend of $84 million, it barely managed half the opening of Rogue One, the previous anthology film, on a larger budget, making it by far the lowest-grossing live-action Star Wars film ever. Deadline conservatively estimated the loss at $77 million. Releasing in such close proximity to megahits Avengers: Infinity War and Deadpool 2 probably didn't help its chances.
  • To emphasize the magnitude of this failure: its domestic gross ended up at $213 million, with its worldwide gross stopping at $392.8 million. Adjusted for inflation, the Star Wars: Special Edition 1997 re-releases in theaters grossed around $275 million. While the domestic take for Solo was actually the twelfth-highest for a film released in 2018, its exceptionally weak overseas performance helped condemn it to box-office failure — for perspective, Venom (2018) earned a near-identical amount domestically and $641 million outside North America; Solo only made $179 million overseas.
  • To stick the lightsaber even deeper, Solo isn't even the lowest grossing Star Wars movie. That dubious honor goes to The Clone Wars animated film, which only earned $69 million compared to Solo's $393 million. And yet, The Clone Wars is saved because it was produced on budget of just $8.5 million compared to Solo's $275 million and is part of the better received TV series (of which the film is actually a few episodes edited together), so it was still very profitable.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: In the Japanese dub, Lando is voiced by TV actor Gotaro Tsunashima. While he is also known for doing voice acting, albeit exclusively for non-Japanese media, for some Western viewers, especially Australians, he is known for playing Hiromitsu Tachibana in the Australian art film Japanese Story.
• Creative Differences: Phil Lord & Chris Miller cited this trope when they left the project, though other reports suggested that they were outright fired. In any case, the source of conflict was apparently over how much of the movie they were improvising, as that did not sit well with Lawrence Kasdan (who prefers that his scripts are fully adhered to) and producer Kathleen Kennedy. Ironically, Kasdan was the one to suggest that the duo direct the movie in the first place.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Thandiwe Newton was not happy about her character's death, since the shooting script left her character's loss ambiguous enough for a return and she felt it was a waste for Star Wars to kill its first theatrical Black woman lead. Co-writer Jonathan Kasdan also stated he felt in retrospect that Newton's performance was "too good" for such a small role.
  • Lawrence Kasdan did not enjoy his experience on the film at all, especially since as stated before much of his script ended up discarded in favor of improvisation. This caused him to say in no uncertain terms that he was done with the franchise and would not return to write for another movie.
  • In 2022, Kathleen Kennedy indicated that she wasn't all that pleased with Alden Ehrenreich in the role of Han Solo, noting that it was a mistake to try to recast one of the most popular legacy characters in all of Star Wars.
• Dawson Casting:
  • Alden Ehrenreich was 27–28 years old at the time of filming; Han Solo is supposed to be aged between 18 and 24 in the film's timeframe.
  • Qi'ra, too, since she is likely in the same age bracket as Han; according to official sources she's 18 at the beginning, then 21 following the Time Skip. Emilia Clarke was 30 during principal photography and pushing 31 when the reshoots happened.
• Darkhorse Casting: Though not as much as The Force Awakens and Rogue One before it, the creators opted to cast a little-known actor as Han Solo rather than a big-name star. Several other supporting roles were filled in with relative unknowns, like Phoebe Waller-Bridge as L3-37 and Erin Kellyman as Enfys Nest.
• Defictionalization: The game of Sabacc played in the film and referenced in other Star Wars media has been made into a real card game◊ to tie in with the film. It is different from the Sabacc previously depicted by the now-Legends Star Wars d6 roleplaying game that used a variation of Tarot Cards.
• Deleted Roles:
  • Much has been said about the inclusion of Tag and Bink into the film when it was in production, and Ron Howard even posed alongside the actors playing them. They didn't make it to the theatrical cut.
  • Beckett's gang originally had a fourth member, who died in the battle on Mimban. He was ultimately removed from the final cut when Ron Howard decided that too much was going on in the scene already and his presence was ultimately unnecessary to the plot.
• Deleted Scene: See here.
• Development Gag:
  • The name Qi'Ra is derived from "Kira", the name originally planned for the character who would become Rey in The Force Awakens.
  • The planet Mimban was originally planned to appear in Rogue One, but was replaced with Jedha.
• Enforced Method Acting: The movie's effects team built a projection screen around the Millennium Falcon's cockpit set that actually produced the on-set version of the "hyperspace tunnel" effect. Consequently, when you see the hyperspace jump in the movie, that's what the cast actually saw on set, and Alden Ehrenreich's genuine elation at what he's seeing.
• Franchise Killer: This film's middling reception seems to have put an end to any more films under the "Star Wars Story" banner.
• God Never Said That:
  • Shortly before the film's opening, Kathleen Kennedy was misquoted as announcing the studio was going ahead with a film focusing on Donald Glover's Lando. She actually just said it was one of many ideas currently up in the air.
  • At the same time, a story broke that Lando was "confirmed" as pansexual. Many pro-LGBT websites praised the film for the decision, while others criticized it as "queerbaiting" since it wasn't made explicit in the film itself. The problem is that the film's writers, Jon and Lawrence Kasdan, were asked the very leading question "Is Lando pansexual?" during a fluff interview. Lawrence Kasdan was noncommittal while his son gave a PR-friendly "I would say yes" response to the interviewer's question, but never says he intended it while writing the script.
  • An interesting case after the film's box-office disappointment: It was believed Disney was shutting down every upcoming film besides The Rise of Skywalker and doing a complete restructuring of their plans. While this was initially denied, Disney CEO Bob Iger later clarified that there would be a 'slowdown' in the release dates of future Star Wars films, indicating that they would no longer be sticking to the initially-planned release schedule for their spin-off franchise. A later report more directly said that the at-the-time current slate of spinoffs had been "flushed". The confirmation of the Obi-Wan Kenobi miniseries on Disney+ appears to indicate that the Star Wars Story label may be dead.
• Hostility on the Set: Alden Ehrenreich was exasperated by Lord and Miller's attempt to make things Lighter and Softer, since he hadn't expected that when he took the part and didn't feel he did comedy well, notwithstanding that there's still a fair amount of funny in the movie.
• Invisible Advertising: Since the film was almost entirely reshot and post-production work was delayed, there was hardly any viable footage for marketing until early February 2018, a little over three months before the release date. For reference, the trailer for The Force Awakens debuted over a year before its release.
• Market-Based Title:
  • In China, the film has had the title changed to Ranger Solo. This is in order to downplay its connections to the rest of the Star Wars franchise, which has been relatively unsuccessful in China, culminating in The Last Jedi being pulled from cinemas after less than a month. Suffice to say, it didn't work out.
  • Contrary to the above, in Spanish-speaking countries the movie is titled with the full Han Solo name, in order to play up the connection to Star Wars, and because in Spanish the word "solo" means "alone", which is not indicative enough. (Portuguese-speaking countries and Poland also went with Han Solo)
• Meaningful Release Date: The film was released on May 25, 2018, the 41st anniversary of A New Hope's 1977 release.
• Meme Acknowledgment: Han shoots first. Specifically, he shoots first at Tobias Beckett.
• Missing Trailer Scene: Han's line of being "in trouble for a second" is not in the final film.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Since Han and Lando are given the Time-Shifted Actor treatment, they're portrayed by Alden Ehrenreich and Donald Glover, respectively.
  • Finnish basketball player and stuntman/actor Joonas Suotamo replaces Peter Mayhew full-time in the film as Chewbacca. He already did a number of scenes with the Chewbacca suit in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. Mayhew did appear in these two films, but he had knee problems that prevented him from moving a lot.
  • While Ray Park reprises his role as Maul, his voice-over is done by Sam Witwer, who portrayed the character on The Clone Wars and Rebels, instead of Peter Serafinowicz, who did the character's voice in The Phantom Menace. Serafinowicz reportedly recorded the lines but was replaced without his knowledge.
• The Other Marty:
  • Michael K. Williams' version of Dryden Vos was cut during reshoots after the change of directors, as Williams was not available during that time. Said role was taken over by Paul Bettany, and was changed from a half-mountain lion hybrid to a Near-human ^note that's the name of the species in the lore.
  • Despite recording his lines for the film, Peter Serafinowicz was replaced by Sam Witwer.
• Promoted Fanboy: Donald Glover was a huge fan of not only Star Wars but Lando Calrissian in particular as a kid, regularly sleeping with a toy of the character that his father bought because it was the only black one he could find. Now he plays a younger Lando.
• Playing Against Type: In the Japanese dub, and while not the first time she had voiced villains in her long career, it's pretty unnerving to hear Hisako Kyoda, a veteran actress well-known on voicing lovely old ladies or in the worst case, lovingly jerks, to voice someone like Lady Proxima.
• Prop Recycling: The Millennium Falcon interiors are the same sets from The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, redressed with a fresh coat of paint.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • Jonathon Kasdan joins his father Lawrence as the co-writer of the film.
  • Clint Howard is the brother of director Ron Howard and has a cameo in the movie.
• Refitted for Sequel:
  • One of the ideas that George Lucas had for the Original Trilogy was that the Millennium Falcon had sentient navicomputers, which would explain why C-3PO complains that the ship is rude. L3 brings that idea back.
  • The Decraniated, who had most of their scenes cut from Rogue One, are reused in this film as Dryden's servants. Especially notable since the female Decraniated featured in the Decraniated's entry in the Rogue One Visual Dictionary doesn't even appear in Rogue One, but does appear in Solo.
  • The scene from the first Rogue One teaser (showing a pan up across a tropical jungle planet), which was likely never even intended to appear in Rogue One, is reused in Solo as the transition to the second Sabacc game.
  • In early concept art, the sequel trilogy was going to feature a young pilot who resembled Han Solo. This character was eventually split into Finn and Poe, while the character design ended up being reused for young Han in Solo.
• Role Reprise:
  • For the first time in one of the movies, Warwick Davis reprises a role he played in an earlier Star Wars movie: Weazel from The Phantom Menace.
  • Ray Park returns as Maul for a cameo, 19 years after The Phantom Menace.
• Screwed by the Network: Disney vetoed requests to spend more money on marketing and to delay the release date, choosing to maintain Mary Poppins Returns on the Christmas release schedule. Partly because of this, the film bombed at the box office.
• Those Two Actors: A minor one, but Paul Bettany (Dryden Vos) and Jon Favreau (the voice of Rio Durant) had previously worked together in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Bettany voiced JARVIS in all the Iron Man films, then later Vision from Avengers: Age of Ultron onward; while Favreau directed the first two Iron Man Films, and played Harold "Happy" Hogan in all his appearances throughout the franchise.
• Throw It In!: George Lucas visited the set after his old friend Ron Howard was brought in, where they were going to shoot a scene that had Han hanging up Qi'ra's cloak for her in the Falcon's closet. George thought that was out of character, and began acting out how he saw him handle her cloak. This change made it into the final cut, marking the only time so far that George has had direct input on the Disney Star Wars films.
• Troubled Production: This has the dubious honor of being the first Star Wars movie since the original trilogy to have things go haywire. Directors Phil Lord & Chris Miller left production after four months of shooting due to conflicts with the studio (they wanted a more comedic production and pushed for more improvising, something that did not sit well with Lucasfilm), and replacement Ron Howard decided to not just complete what remained, but also reshoot Lord & Miller's footage until he got sole credit — with 80 percent of the finished product being his work — ballooning the budget and forcing Dryden Vos to be recast. It even hurt marketing, as there wasn't enough footage for a trailer until three months prior to release.^note For reference, Avengers: Infinity War had its first public trailer released a full 6 months before its release date, whilst the teaser for The Force Awakens debuted over a year before its release.
• Wag the Director: Sam Witwer vehemently disapproved of Peter Serafinowicz's original voice performance for Maul at the end of this film, as he felt that it was unrecognizable from Maul's portrayal in both the animated shows and Phantom Menace. As such, he insisted on being the one to voice Maul to cater to The Clone Wars and Rebels fans, rather than have a portrayal of Maul that alienated both hardcore and casual fans of the franchise.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Taron Egerton was the runner-up for the part of Han Solo before Alden Ehrenreich was cast. However, Egerton was passed over due to the fact that he was already the lead in multiple upcoming franchise pictures and the producers felt that he wouldn't be able to give the role the time and focus they wanted.
  • Scott Eastwood, Ansel Elgort, Tom Felton, Dave Franco, Logan Lerman, Jack O'Connell, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Miles Teller and Ed Westwick were also considered.
  • Charlie Cox lobbied for the part of Han Solo and had a screen-test with the producers. However, Cox was turned down as the producers feared that his tendency to not keep eye contact - a trait he acquired due to his intense Method Acting as a blind man in Daredevil^note he trained for the role by wearing special contact lenses that completely blinded him and took courses for recently-blinded people while wearing them - would weaken the character portrayal.
  • Michael B. Jordan, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and O'Shea Jackson Jr. were considered for Lando Calrissian before the casting of Donald Glover.
  • Tessa Thompson, Naomi Scott, Zoë Kravitz, Kiersey Clemons, Adria Arjona, and Jessica Henwick auditioned for the role of Qi'ra before Emilia Clarke was cast. Henwick previously portrayed Jessika Pava in The Force Awakens.
  • Christian Bale had discussions for the part of Tobias Beckett before the casting of Woody Harrelson.
  • Dryden Vos was originally played by Michael K. Williams, but he was unavailable for reshoots and was replaced by Paul Bettany. According to Williams, Vos was originally a "half-mountain lion"-like character (concept art would show that one of the species that Vos could've been was a Lasat), but presumably the alien beast-like aspect of Vos was dropped also for pragmatism. Some of this seems to have carried through to a few of Vos' private army (particularly note the one who discovered that the cases of coaxium were empty, who gets a fair amount of camera focus).
  • The idea of a Han Solo prequel was first conceived by George Lucas himself. Prior to selling Lucasfilm to Disney, Lucas hired Lawrence Kasdan to write a screenplay for the movie. The project was put on hold after Disney acquired Lucasfilm so that Kasdan could help write for The Force Awakens.
  • Beckett's gang originally had a fourth member, a big brawny dude named Korso who died in the fighting on Mimban. His role was fully filmed but mostly deleted when it was decided that there was enough going on in the scene already without introducing a new character and then immediately killing him off. Part of the logic of his character was that without him, Beckett's gang would have lost their muscle, a need which Chewbacca could then handily fulfill. He's still visible in a few brief shots (look for the guy with the massive minigun).
  • There were quite a few candidates considered for the big reveal of Crimson Dawn's true leader, with Darth Maul winning out because Ron Howard's son, Reed, is a huge fan of the prequels, and of Maul especially.
  • Original directors Phil Lord & Chris Miller were replaced mid-production. According to early reports, they were let go for making a screwball comedy in the vein of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, though later sources claimed their genuine inspiration was fellow Disney property Guardians of the Galaxy (2014). Ron Howard then took over as director and reshot most of what they'd done under his own direction, keeping what they had in mind, but also making sure that the film was in-line with the Original Trilogy.
  • Early concepts for Qi'ra envisioned her as a humanoid alien, before it was decided she would be human in the final product. Some of the concept art of alien Qi'ra was reused for the character of Margo, the imroosian concierge on the First Light.
  • The film was planed to be the first in a trilogy, with Ehrenreich and Clarke already signed up, but any direct film follow up was shelved after the below par box office.
  • Darth Maul was initially going to be voiced by Peter Serafinowicz, who had previously voiced Maul in Phantom Menace, and he even recorded the dialogue for the scene. However, Sam Witwer vehemently disagreed with Serafinowicz's performance, as he felt that it was unrecognizable from Maul's portrayal in both the animated shows and Phantom Menace, and so insisted on being the one to voice Maul to cater to Clone Wars and Rebels fans.
  • Sam Witwer also suggested that Maul wield the Darksaber during his cameo scene, but the animators decided to use his cane-saber from Rebels instead. The Darksaber would eventually make its live-action debut in the Season 1 finale of The Mandalorian.
  • Beckett's partner Val dies during the train heist, but in the shooting script her fate was more ambiguous, leaning towards Never Found the Body. Her actress Thandiwe Newton claims this was so the character could possibly return later, but during filming the shots making Val's survival a possibility were cut.
• Word of Gay: Co-writer Jonathan Kasdan said within days of the film opening that Lando Calrissian is pansexual. Funnily, Billy Dee Williams reached a similar conclusion in 2013, where he suggested that Lando was wearing Han's clothes in a scene from The Empire Strikes Back because he'd put them on in the dark after a one-night stand.
• Word of Saint Paul: Donald Glover has shown approval for the interpretation of Lando Calrissian as pansexual, saying that in a scenario where someone could be in love with an alien blob, it seems much stranger to limit himself to one gender.
• Working Title: The production was called "Red Cup" while Lord & Miller worked on it. Once Howard took over, "Solo" became the new working title... until it turned out that the movie was really titled as such.
• You Look Familiar:
  • Performer and model Sema-Tawi Smart played Ubialla Gheal in The Last Jedi and the singer Aurodia Ventafoli at Dryden Vos's party in Solo.
  • Voice-acting example: Jon Favreau (Rio Durant) previously voiced Pre Vizsla in Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
  • Anthony Daniels plays a slave in the Kessel spice mines named Tak, his second non-C-3PO role in a Star Wars production after the bar patron Dannl Faytonni in Attack of the Clones, and continuing the tradition of having Daniels in every Star Wars film.

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