Alden Ehrenreich will play young Han Solo in Star Wars spin-off movie

After months of speculation and rumours, Disney has officially confirmed that actor Alden Ehrenreich will play young Han Solo in the upcoming Star Wars spin-off movie, which is slated for release on 25 May 2018.

Deadline reported that Ehrenreich will take over the Han Solo mantle from Harrison Ford, who first appeared as the captain of Millennium Falcon in the 1977 movie Star Wars: A New Hope, and went on to play the smuggler in The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi. Ford also appeared in the 2015 movie Star Wars: The Force Awakens, where Solo was tragically killed by his own son, Ben Solo aka Kylo Ren.

The plot details for the movie have been kept under wraps but will mainly focus on Han Solo's days before joining the Rebel Alliance. The standalone movie will be directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, and is rumoured to be titled, Han Solo: A Star Wars Story.

Alden Ehrenreich made his feature film debut in Francis Ford Coppola's independent film Tetro (2009). The actor also appeared in Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine and Park Chan-wook's Stoker. In 2016, Ehrenreich starred as Hobie Doyle in the Coen brothers comedy Hail, Caesar.

The actor could potentially show up as Han Solo in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which is set shortly before the events of A New Hope. The movie story will centre on a group of Rebel spies on a mission to steal the plans for the Galactic Empire's new weapon, the Death Star.

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