Young Han Solo Film Brings In Composer John Powell
The untitled young Han Solo Star Wars anthology film has recruited another Oscar honoree. Shortly after bringing in Ron Howard as a replacement director for Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the film has added John Powell as the composer for the film, as revealed Wednesday during Lucasfilm's Star Wars Show.
Most of Powell's work has been in animated films, with the composer earning an Oscar nod in 2010 for How to Train Your Dragon. His more recent credits include Pan, Jason Bourne, and the upcoming Ferdinand; he is also known for his work on Rio, Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, Jumper, X-Men: The Last Stand, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Powell will be just the third person ever to score a live-action Star Wars film, after John Williams and Michael Giacchino.
Lord and Miller left the project after months of filming, with just a few weeks left before it was set to reach completion. While the two listed "creative differences" as the official reason for their departure, extensive reports have said that they were fired from the project over far-reaching conflicts with Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan.
Howard, an Oscar winner for directing A Beautiful Mind, was rumored to be a frontrunner right away and was officially announced as the new director shortly after their departure. (Another interesting tidbit in the composer announcement video is the fact that the Star Wars Show hosts said the film was "directed by Ron Howard"– something which could provide some hints in the controversy about who will get Directors Guild credit for the film.)
Since he signed on, Howard has been hard at work getting the film– and its public image– back on track, sharing glimpses of his work from the set. His addition to the crew hasn't made it any less secretive, though, and we still know very little about the movie's plot. We do know that it will star Alden Ehrenreich as the younger version of the gunslinger Harrison Ford played in the original films and that it will follow the pre-A New Hope adventures of Han and Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo).
The rest of the cast includes Emilia Clark as the female lead, Donald Glover as a young Lando Calrissian, and Woody Harrelson as Han's criminal mentor. Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Thandie Newton, and Michael K. Williams also star in the movie, which is still set to hits its original May 25, 2018 release date. In the meantime, read up on what really went down behind the scenes of the movie's dramatic director shake-up.