Earlier this month, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy appeared to confirm that, after Solo: A Star Wars Story underwhelmed, the studio will no longer recast legacy characters. Han Solo and Lando Calrissian are the only two major characters that have swapped actors for Disney-era projects, with the rest usually de-aged (or, in some cases, resurrected) with visual effects.
In The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, we've seen Mark Hamill return as a young Luke Skywalker, while Rogue One: A Star Wars Story de-aged Princess Leia prior to Carrie Fisher's death and even brought Peter Cushing back to life as Grand Moff Tarkin.
Many Star Wars fans were disappointed to hear Kennedy seemingly write off the incredible work of Alden Ehrenreich and Donald Glover, especially as they played Han and Lando in less than ideal circumstances. Talking to Games Radar (via SFFGazette.com) the executive seemingly walked back those remarks.
"I never say never [with regard to recasting characters]. It’s certainly not something that we’re doing with any intention right now," Kennedy explained. "We’re still talking about Lando with Donald Glover, for instance, but I don’t think we would intentionally just look back at some of the characters like Luke and Leia and whatnot and decide arbitrarily to do a story."
"There would have to be a really strong reason why. There’s always a future for Solo!"
This is likely to make fans happy, and it's not necessarily a bad thing that Lucasfilm now plans to put a little more thought into recasting characters. There are certainly more stories to be told with many of them, so fingers crossed they find a way to achieve the right balance of de-aged actors (for memorable cameos like Hamill's recent efforts) and worthy re-castings that allow future movies and TV shows to better explore familiar heroes and villains.
What are your hopes for the future of legacy characters in this Galaxy Far, Far Away?