Solo: A Star Wars Story writer has ideas for a follow-up

While speaking to The Hollywood Reporter about his new series Willow, screenwriter Jonathan Kasdan discussed the possibility of continuing what he started with Solo: a Star Wars Story, which opened to disappointing box office returns in 2018. Kasdan wrote the movie, about the younger years of Han Solo, with his father Lawrence Kasdan, who himself co-wrote the screenplays for The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

Solo ended with something of a cliffhanger, as we learned that Darth Maul had somehow survived being cut in half back in The Phantom Menace and was running the Crimson Dawn criminal syndicate, with people like the crime lord Dryden Vos and Han Solo’s childhood friend Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke) serving as his lieutenants. But will we ever get a movie or TV show that follows up on that?

“I don’t honestly know,” Kasdan said. “I’m always afraid to ask [Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy] about it because she can see right through me. She can see my desire to tell more stories there. But in recent months, I have been intrigued by the wonderful Werewolf by Night as a potential form of storytelling… So I would love to see Lucasfilm embrace a short-form novella version for telling some of their stories. That certainly seems like a place where future stories about those characters could live.”

Solo: A Star Wars Story writer wants to fix plot holes in followup

Werewolf by Night was a one-off Marvel release on Disney+. It got a warm reception, which could bode well for similar projects. Since Lucasfilm seems apprehensive about releasing full-sized Star Wars movies right now, perhaps the short form novella style provides the answer. We could have a standalone adventure that caught up with Qi’ra or even Darth Maul. Kasdan certainly seems willing.

“I’ll tell you the biggest problem that has always haunted me about Solo,” Kasdan said. “I’m going to reveal the writer’s nightmare right now. If Dryden Vos is so concerned about exposing his gang in the heist, why does he send his most trusted aid to be the most visible member of the team that steals the coaxium? It seems to me that he’s going to have to kill her almost immediately just to separate himself from that job. So it always drove me crazy, and it was a problem that I was eager to retcon in a sequel.”

It certainly sounds like Kasdan has thought about this a lot and is ready to fix the mistakes of the original film. However, since grossing $400 million is considered a failure by Disney standards, it’s doubtful that a Solo sequel is on the way…at least not in movie form.

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