The still-untitled Han Solo movie has been coming together in recent months, now under the watchful eyes of Ron Howard, who has been moderately open about sharing non-spoilery, or mostly non-spoilery set photos. But in recent days, it has seemed that a potential casting may have leaked, when one Funko Pop employee started talking about the Hano Solo movie in relation to its line of toys. Mark, from Funko Pop mentioned that he is excited for the upcoming Star Wars prequel, naming a few cast members from the movie, including Lupita Nyong'o. He said,
Emilia Clarke, Lupita Nyong'o, Woody Harrelson, Donald Glover, whether I like Han Solo or not that's a cast that you really cannot, you know, you've got to be excited about that casting alone.
But wait, you may be asking, Lupita Nyong'o? The actress in question plays Maz Kanata in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and if you've been keeping tabs on the Star Wars franchise in recent weeks, you may already know that Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson shared an image a while back of a person working in a motion capture suit alongside an image of Maz Kanata, and the director has confirmed that Maz will be back in action when The Last Jedi hits theaters on December 15. However, an appearance in the Han Solo movie would mark a younger appearance from the character and one that would be far more unexpected. The real question is, "Will it actually happen?"
The above quote came up when the Steele Wars podcast was asking a lot of questions about Funko Mark's knowledge of new Star Wars products. The Funko Pop expert also mentioned that sometimes Disney is sending out orders only 4-5 months in advance of the films, which makes sense, as toys--not just Funko Pops but plenty of other collectibles--have been known to spoil plots before. He actually seemed pretty nonchalant about the process, noting,
That's really irrelevant to us. As long as they get us the hard assets we can plan around it. We know that it's coming. It's not like [Disney] just, you know, showed up at our doorstep and said, 'We have a new movie in a few months.' We still knew, a while back that [Han Solo] was coming... It's not like I'm back in the back room carving them or anything.
He also went on and on about the various Star Wars projects that Funko is working on, which makes it easy to see how the actors or actresses in different Star Wars franchise movies could be easily confused. It really doesn't sound as if Funko Mark was trying to spoil anything here. Perhaps it was a slip of the tongue and the poor man just briefly mixed up properties. Perhaps what he really meant to say instead of Lupita Nyong'o was Alden Ehrenreich, etc.
And perhaps Maz Kanata really will make an appearance in the Han Solo movie after all, to add another nice connection between the different sets of movies Disney and Lucasfilm have coming together. After all, the character is supposedly 1,000 years of age. Whatever the answer, it's not one we're likely to get from the studio soon. On the bright side, you will be able to catch the character in Star Wars: Forces Of Destiny soon.
