Jon Kasdan Believes ‘Solo’ TV Specials Could Work, Shares His Biggest Writing Problem With the Movie

In a new interview as part of the promotion for the new Disney Plus series Willow, Jon Kasdan spoke candidly with The Hollywood Reporter about his work on Solo and where he believes Lucasfilm should take potential sequels to the story. Kasdan, who co-wrote the film with his father, legendary screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan (Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Empire Strikes Back), has never shied away from talking about the film and the plans they were making for possible future installments.

First, he revealed his biggest writing problem with Solo, which apparently made him lose some sleep when they were making the movie:

“I’m going to reveal the writer’s nightmare right now. If Dryden Vos [Paul Bettany] is so concerned about exposing his gang in the [Kessel] heist, why does he send his most trusted aid [Qi’ra] to be the most visible member of the team that steals the coaxial? It seems to me that he’s going to have to kill her almost immediately just to separate himself from that job. So it always drove me crazy, and it was a problem that I was eager to retcon in a sequel.”

One of the highlights of the movie, for him, was the character of Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke). She was a creation of Lawrence Kasdan himself, who was trying to create a morally ambiguous female character in Star Wars. Jon Kasdan said the following about her:

“Before I got involved and before anyone was involved, my dad was passionate about creating a different kind of femme fatale in the Star Wars universe, someone who was sincerely morally ambiguous. Qi’ra had grown up very hard, she’d had a life that forced her to become a survivor, and she was going to have to make tough choices that Han [Alden Ehrenreich] couldn’t quite make. Even in the final moments of his life, Han was always going to be undone by his humanism and his heart, but Qi’ra was on the other side of the line.
So what I thought Emilia brought to it wonderfully is that she’s not evil or duplicitous. She’s a survivor and she’s maneuvering through all these different powerful entities to get to the end of the game. As the years have gone by and there have been more Star Wars, my enthusiasm for doing more Solo has waned only because there’s so much great Star Wars out there right now. But the thing that I would love to revisit is the relationship between the two of them because there’s so much fun and complexity to be found in the relationship between Han and Qi’ra.”

Lastly, when asked about the potential for more Solo-related stories living on Disney Plus, in the vein of Willow, he admitted that he’s been attracted by the idea of making a TV special presentation like Marvel Studios has been doing recently:

Lastly, when asked about the potential for more Solo-related stories living on Disney Plus, in the vein of Willow, he admitted that he’s been attracted by the idea of making a TV special presentation like Marvel Studios has been doing recently:

I don’t honestly know. I’m always afraid to ask Kathy because she can see right through me. Despite all my resistance, she instantly sees right through me, and she can see my desire to tell more stories there. But in recent months, I have been intrigued by the wonderful Werewolf by Night as a potential form of storytelling on Disney+. So I would love to see Lucasfilm embrace a short-form novella version for telling some of their stories. That certainly seems like a place where future stories about those characters could live.

Of course, no Star Wars live-action TV specials have been announced so far, but it could be an interesting idea to explore if Disney considers the numbers pulled by Werewolf by Night and The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special are good enough. All Star Wars live-action content is now coming to us through television (Andor season 1 has now wrapped, and we are in the three-month countdown to The Mandalorian season 3 premiere), and as the franchise looks to return to the big screen — something likely to happen in late 2024 or 2025 — a TV live-action special could work as a bridge between both worlds while we wait.

This is not the first time Kasdan has acknowledged the desire for more Solo stories in recent weeks, and with Willow now scoring great reviews across the board, perhaps Kathleen Kennedy will be willing to give Alden Ehrenreich another opportunity to play the character.

For now, Willow, another Lucasfilm production that George Lucas apparently wanted to see back when he sold the company to Disney, is streaming on Disney Plus. You can read Josh’s review on our sister site Movie News Net.