John Williams Writing Theme For ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’

2018 has dawned, and there’s about five months until the scheduled release of “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” and yet Disney‘s marketing machine for the movie remains at a standstill. There’s still no trailer or official stills from the actual movie, just lots of speculation and, among die hard “Star Wars” fans, some concern. With Phil Lord and Chris Miller leaving the production, and Ron Howard stepping in for extensive rounds of new filming, there’s certainly fair ground to ask questions about how steadily the final film will hold up. Well, some veteran help is stepping in.

Franchise mainstay John Williams will be penning the theme song for “Solo: A Star Wars Story.” The composer revealed the news to Variety, saying, “The present plan is that I’m writing a theme for Han Solo, and John Powell is going to write the score, which he’ll do brilliantly.”

Powell (Oscar nominee for “How To Train Your Dragon,” the original Bourne trilogy, “X-Men 3: The Last Stand”) was hired for the gig last summer shortly after Howard took the reins of the project. No reason has been given why Williams has been roped into the spinoff, but it will allow him to write another song for the character following “Han Solo and the Princess” for “Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back,” “Han Solo Returns (At the Court of Jabba The Hut)” for “Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi” and “Han and Leia” for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”

So, another interesting nugget for a film that, for now, remains an enigma. “Solo: A Star Wars Story” opens on May 25th.