Entertainment Weekly scored an interview with Mark Hamill earlier this week, now the magazine has word that Harrison Ford is indeed in the loop and willing to appear in the next wave of Star Wars films set to take place after the events of 1983’s Return of the Jedi.
“Harrison is open to the idea of doing the movie and he’s upbeat about it, all three of them are,” a highly placed source told the mag.
In reference to “all three of them,” fans will be happy to know that is Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher. Hamill and Fisher met with George Lucas last summer where the director brought up his ideas regarding Star Wars: Episodes VII, VII and IX.
However, Ford may stipulate in his contract that Han may meet his demise at some point. It’s no secret that Solo was originally supposed to be killed off halfway through Return of The Jedi in early drafts of the film, something the actor was not opposed to.
“I thought he should have died in the last one to give it some bottom…George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys,” Ford said in an ABC interview from 2010.
“We had an outline and George changed everything in it,” former Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz told the LA Times in 2010. “Instead of bittersweet and poignant he wanted a euphoric ending with everybody happy. The original idea was that they would recover [the kidnapped] Han Solo in the early part of the story and that he would then die in the middle part of the film in a raid on an Imperial base. George then decided he didn’t want any of the principals killed. By that time there were really big toy sales and that was a reason.”
EW reports any further movement on the return of Han Solo still depends on securing the script and director for Episode VII, which is targeted for 2015. Though it wouldn’t surprise me to learn down the road that if Harrison Ford indeed reprises the role, it was mainly to give Han the proper poignant death the character was denied in Return of the Jedi.
Also on the Star Wars update news ticker, Collider reports that Matthew Vaughn is on the short list for the coveted director’s chair. The Kick Ass and X-Men: First Class director recently and abruptly dropped out of helming First Class‘ sequel, X-Men: Days of Future Past. While he is still producing that film, and has a track record of leaving projects, he does have a lot more time on his hands to be a solid contender.
This is going to be a story with non-stop rumors, speculation, and updates in the next few months, as it has been since Disney bought Lucasfilm last week. Even though the first new film under the new Disney banner is three years away, the undertaking will require some major things to be set in stone by year’s end. Stay tuned…
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