Star Wars: Paul Bettany Describes His 'Solo' Character as an "Intergalactic Gangster"

Ron Howard announced that Paul Bettany had joined the cast of Solo: A Star Wars Story earlier this year, but little is known about what character the actor would be playing. During an appearance at the Rhode Island Comic Con this past weekend, Bettany offered only that his character is an "intergalactic gangster."

When a fan asked him about his character in the upcoming film, Bettany played coy, but revealed, "You know, obviously, I'm a very cool intergalactic gangster."

The announcement of Bettany's participation came around the time that Michael K. Williams announced that he would no longer be in the film, leading to reports that Bettany took over Williams' role. Rather than it being an issue with Williams' performance, the actor's schedule hadn't been able to accommodate the reshoots under Howard's leadership.

The spinoff from the Star Wars saga that explores the history of Han Solo began filming early this year under directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord. The production was seemingly going as scheduled, until this past June when Lucasfilm made the surprising announcement that the duo were departing the project.

Initially, it was unclear what had transpired that had caused the rift in the production, with reports beginning to surface shortly afterwards that the duo's comedically improvisational fimmaking style had gone too far into a "silly" direction for the studio's liking.

Shortly after the duo's departure, Lucasfilm announced that Ron Howard would finish filming the movie, which reportedly had only a few weeks left of principal photography, as well as the film's reshoots.

Howard took over the film in early July and only wrapped filming in October, making fans question how much of Lord and Miller's original footage will be included in the movie.

Given that Williams' character was scheduled to include elements of motion-capture and Bettany's character is portrayed as a human, it's unclear if these are two different characters or if the vision of the character changed under Howard's leadership. Given how long, and seemingly expensive, Howard's reshoots have lasted, it would make perfect sense to modify the character to suit the new production schdule.

We'll know more about Bettany's character when Solo: A Star Wars Story hits theaters on May 25, 2018.

[H/T Heroic Hollywood]