Although it had to come courtesy of a storm of Paparazzi photographers hounding Lucas, he did find a way to sneak in a comment about his old friend Ron Howard nabbing the Han Solo job: "I think he'll be great."
Howard and Lucas go way back, in fact 45 years ago today Lucas and Howard began shooting “American Graffiti” in San Rafael, California. Howard was even quoted as telling a Cannes Lion audience last Friday: “I’ve been around the ‘Star Wars’ universe from the beginning." A famous story has Howard talking to Lucas, in between takes of "American Graffitti," and Lucas telling Howard his next movie will be a "Space opera." “ He said, ‘Yeah, I want to do a science-fiction movie,’ ”Howard said last week, “ ‘but a really fun one like “Flash Gordon” with the effects of Stanley Kubrick’s “2001.” ‘ I thought, ‘That sounds like a kind of crazy idea.’ ”
Howard was even considered to direct a film from the “Star Wars” prequels, but his response was rather simply “You direct it, George — you direct it.”