There have been changes big and small for the Han Solo Star Wars spin-off movie, the most notable being Ron Howard coming in to direct after the dismissal of Phil Lord and Chris Miller. Now there is word that Michael K. Williams' character won't make the final cut.
Williams was added to play a mysterious – and still unknown – character in March of this year. The reason? Pesky scheduling. "When Ron Howard got hired to finish out the film, there were some reshoot issues that needed to be done in regards to my character, in order for it to match the new direction which the producers wanted Ron to carry the film in," Williams tells Deadline. "And that would have required me on a plane a month ago to London, to Pinewood, to do reshoots. But I’m here, on location in Africa (for Red Sea Diving Resort). It’s scheduling. I’m not going to be back on the market until the end of November, and for them to wait that long for me, that would have pushed back the release date, which I believe is in May 2018. They wanted me now; I couldn’t go. So they had to clip-clip-clip."
Nothing had been officially released about what he was playing, but Williams has said he was a human/creature hybrid. And he hopes that he might be back one day in some other capacity.
So now the filming continues without him, but with cast members including Alden Ehrenreich, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke and Donald Glover. The film will indeed be out next May – 25 May, to be exact.
Ron Howard Named New Director Of Han Solo Star Wars Spin-Off