Ron Howard

It’s an interesting thought experiment.

We’ve got some new clues to the reason the most famous spaceship in Star Wars looks so different in its new incarnation.

The first trailer for the Han Solo spinoff arrived, and we’ve broken down all the Easter eggs and details you may have missed.

The latest on the Han Solo spinoff reveals the smuggler will rob a train, how different the Millennium Falcon will be, and more.

Football is cool and all, but it’s got nothing on ‘Star Wars.’

We can expect to see a lot of Han Solo’s past played out in the movie — especially that game of dice with which he wins the Millennium Falcon.

The news that Ron Howard would take the directorial reins on Han Solo from Chris Miller and Phil Lord was met with a mixed reception by the ardent Star Wars fanbase. Some remembered Howard as the director behind Apollo 13, a movie partially set in outer space (the same location as much of Han Solo, presumably!), and figured he’d be right for the job. Others had fresher recollections of Ron Howard’s Inferno, a.k.a. Bad Tom Hanks Hairpiece 3, and expressed some misgivings. But today, one ardent supporter of Howard‘s has made a statement from the shadows on why he’s a perfect fit for the franchise, though he may have some rubbery, alien skin in the game.

If you’ve made use of the internet in the past week, then you may very well be aware of a recent personnel change-up on the set of the gestating Han Solo spinoff film. Original directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller are out, Ron Howard’s in, but as with most showbiz behind-the-scenes drama, the details have been kept under wraps. That is, until The Hollywood Reporter ran an illuminating new item this morning, getting the dish on what really drove the two filmmakers away from this project. The catch-all code word of “creative differences” does not even come close to doing justice to the antipathy between the Lord-Miller brain trust and Lucasfilm.

Next in my ongoing preview of 2011 is a project that probably won't make it to screens in 2011 but who knows, it's the furthest thing from a conventional gameplan for a movie franchise. I'm talking about Stephen King's epic scifi-horror-western; "The Dark Tower" series.