The sudden departure of Phil Lord and Chris Miller from Disney’s standalone Han Solo film created a lot of anxiety—a disturbance that the studio has tried to quell by bringing in the sure, steady hand of Ron Howard, who’s also done his part to assure that everything’s fine. “[It’s] coming along great,” Howard told The Hollywood Reporter just a few weeks ago. Everything is under control. Situation normal. Oh, also Michael K. Williams has been cut from the film. How are you?
Williams tells Deadline that his role—a “kick-ass character” who is reportedly half-human, half-animal—was dropped from the film after he wasn’t able to make the reshoots necessary “in order for it to match the new direction which the producers wanted Ron to carry the film in.” Williams, currently shooting the spy thriller The Red Sea Diving Resort in South Africa, is due to film the next season of Hap And Leonard after that, leaving him tied up until November. And so, Williams says, “They had to clip-clip-clip,” making the famous noise for spaceships recognizable to any Star Wars fan.
Granted, we don’t know anything more about Williams’ part, other than it was Michael K. Williams playing a badass intergalactic manimal who probably flies a cool spaceship, clip-clip-clip, but that alone is enough to lament his loss—and sure, to slightly, preemptively resent any direction the film might take that is away from giving us that. Still, Williams insists, “I don’t think that me not being in the Star Wars family is final,” leaving open the possibility that he could be cast in another sequel/spinoff down the road. And in the meantime, his lost character is free to enter the realm of your own imagination to embark on whatever epic adventures you can dream up, until Kathleen Kennedy takes issue with the tone and replaces you.