Free Republic

The blaster that helped the Rebel Alliance finally take down the Empire could soon be yours. Han Solo’s DL-44 Heavy Blaster Pistol from the original Star Wars trilogy will be sold next month by Rock Island Auction Company. The weapon isn’t just a lovingly crafted replica, either. It’s the actual prop that was wielded by Harrison Ford on the set of the original film in the franchise... Here's the auction page: Lot 1247: Documented Mauser Broomhandle “DL-44 Heavy Blaster Pistol” Prop

Hope Solo, the former goalie for the US Women’s National Team, was arrested for alleged DWI in North Carolina on Thursday. Police told TMZ that Solo, 40, was taken into custody in the parking lot of a Walmart in Winston-Salem, and processed in the Forsyth County jail. Solo allegedly had two young kids in the car at the time. She is married to former NFL tight end Jerramy Stevens and they have 2-year-old twins. It was not immediately clear if it was the twins who were in the car with her at the time, but TMZ says it was “likely”...

Harrison Ford is under investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration after once again experiencing an aviation mishap. Last week, the Star Wars actor, 77, was piloting a plane in Los Angeles when he crossed a runway at Hawthorne Airport, despite receiving radio instructions to stay back as another aircraft was landing. Ford released a statement obtained by EW on Wednesday, saying the "runway incursion" was due to his misunderstanding of the orders and that luckily, no one was harmed. "Mr. Ford crossed the airport's only runway in his aircraft after he misheard a radio instruction from ATC. He immediately acknowledged...

Ron Howard has said that online trolls were partly to blame for the lacklustre box office performance of Solo: A Star Wars Story. The Oscar-winning filmmaker, who is currently promoting upcoming documentary Pavarotti, told the Happy Sad Confused podcast that “aggressive trolling” was a crucial factor in the film’s financial under-performance but that he still greatly enjoyed the creative experience of making the film. “I wish it could have lived up to the box office expectations,” Howard said. “That’s disappointing. Why didn’t it? Maybe that’s the release [date], maybe it was too nostalgic, maybe pushback from the previous movie…some trolling,...

Lucasfilm is allegedly changing course on its plans for the future of the “Star Wars” movie universe. Sources close to the studio tell Collider all “Star Wars” spinoff films are being put on hold following the mixed critical response and poor box office for “Solo: A Star Wars Story.” The Han Solo spinoff opened May 25 and has still not crossed the $200 million mark at the U.S. box office as of June 20, making it the lowest grossing title of the Disney-backed “Star Wars” era. The future “A Star Wars Story” films included spinoffs centered around Obi-Wan Kenobi and...

Star Wars has become a pop-culture phenomenon, Harrison Ford who portrays Han Solor is a very popular one. When one think of Han, we can imagine him quick drawing the iconic blaster pistol. Youtuber Slingshot Channel guy, Joerg Sprave, liked the weapon so much that he made a functioning rubber-band replica. Who knew it was based on the real Mauser C96 which shot a 7.63x25mm (almost a 9mm)? Sprave did a great job of recreating the look of Han’s blaster right down to the weathering marks. Yes, this toy isn't a real gun, but if you’re a fan of Star...

Racist harassment of 'Last Jedi' star Kelly Marie Tran and the 'Solo' backlash: Lucasfilm’s problem isn’t the movies, it’s trolls who want only the nostalgia of their youth, like "old Luke Skywalker hiding on an island from everything new," writes columnist Marc Bernardin. Fandom has always been an us versus them proposition. In the early days, it was because you loved something that the world at large found silly, be it comic books or Doctor Who. It was you and those who felt like you, against everyone else. Star Wars redefined fandom because it built a bigger tent than had...

To borrow one of Han Solo's lines from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, "That's not how the Force works!" It's an apt way to sum up the troubled performance of Solo: A Star Wars Story. In one of the biggest box-office surprises in recent times, Solo is badly underperforming and will become the first of the Star Wars movies made by Disney and Lucasfilm to lose money. Wall Street analyst Barton Crockett says Solo will lose more than $50 million. Industry financing souces, however, say that figure could come in at $80 million or higher, although no one knows the...

The post-Memorial Day weekend at the box office doesn’t have to be a downer. However, none of the majors wanted to take advantage of that opportunity and slot an event title here. Some will argue that it’s an oversaturated marketplace, however, product rules. Don’t forget that. A year ago, Wonder Woman opened in this space and soared to a $103.2M opening and became the biggest grossing title of last summer stateside with $412.5M. She followed on the heels of the lackluster start by Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, which had a $78.4M four-day. This year,...

Walt Disney and Lucasfilm’s Solo: A Star Wars Story performed at near-worst-case scenario levels this Memorial Day weekend. The film opened with a soft-ish $35.6 million on Friday, including $14m in Thursday previews, before comparatively cratering over the holiday for an $83.3m Fri-Sun and projected $101m Fri-Mon frame. That’s a weak 2.83x four-day weekend multiplier, on par with Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2.73x in 2007) and X-Men: The Last Stand (2.71x in 2006). That wouldn’t be a problem if the overall numbers were bigger, as X-Men 3 and Pirates 3 both set Memorial Day records. Solo did...

This week marks the release of a new Star Wars movie, focusing on arguably the most loved character in the history of the franchise – swashbuckling cosmic bad-boy Han Solo. Everything about Solo: A Star Wars Story suggests it should be steaming into cinemas on the back of a roaring hype train, but that’s not so. Compared with the rabid fan anticipation that preceded The Force Awakens in 2015 and last year’s divisive The Last Jedi, the publicity build-up to Solo is muted, like Chewbacca with a sore throat.

Disney/Lucasfilm’s Solo: A Star Wars Story has landed on tracking and the Memorial Day release per industry projections (not Disney) are forecasting a Friday through Monday start of $170M-plus at the domestic box office. Sources tell Deadline that Solo‘s tracking is “pretty strong” with an unaided score of 28 that’s higher than Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ($155M, 23 score) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 ($146.5M, 23). Unaided awareness indicates how strong the buzz is on a title among those who are unprompted in polling and it’s a priceless stat off which studios buy their TV ads....

Ehrenreich...started to worry that Lord & Miller’s screwball comedy angle was starting to interfere with what the character of Han Solo is really about ... One source described it as being oddly comparable to Jim Carrey’s performance in Ace Ventura at times. Ehrenreich let his concerns be known to one of the producers... ... The reason people close to the project have described it positively was that they saw several isolated scenes. However, when an assembly cut actually started to come together, that was where the issues presented themselves in earnest, and this is where Kennedy and Kasdan – as...

Sen. Ted Cruz kicked off the new year by gushing about the new Star Wars movie and his favorite super-hero comic books. "Ever since I was a little kid, I would read comic books and grew up on sci-fi," Cruz said an interview set to air Saturday with "Geek Tank Radio," a show broadcast on a local Memphis radio station. The hosts of the show promised not to ask him any questions about politics, pledging instead to stick to "geek topics." "I'm very much an original Star Trek guy rather than a Next Generation guy," Cruz said, later admitting his...

Did you know that the Millennium Falcon's cockpit was inspired by the WWII B-29 Superfortress bomber? Did you know that the Star Wars saga most famous spacecraft featured a cockpit clearly inspired to a World War II heavy bomber? Well, the iconic greenhouse-style window of the Millennium Falcon was designed with the style of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, a strategic bomber flying 30 years before Han Solo and Chewbacca first appeared driving the iconic spacecraft into the hyperspace, in mind.

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz says the wisdom of "Star Wars" can be applied to the campaign trail."An important question to ask of any presidential candidate is which 'Star Wars' figure would you be? And I got to say, anyone who says Luke Skywalker ought to be eliminated right off the bat. The only right answer to that is Han Solo," joked Cruz at a campaign stop in Bettendorf, Iowa.Cruz called Han Solo the "coolest character in all of cinema" and said that he's loved "Star Wars" since he was a boy."I grew up on 'Star Wars,'" Cruz said. "You...

Prime Minister-designate Justin Trudeau, dressed as Han Solo from The Empire Strikes Back, walks with his children Hadrien (second from right), Ella-Grace and Xavier, as his wife Sophie Gregoire, dressed as Princess Leia, jokes with onlookers as the family prepares to go trick-or-treating in Ottawa on Saturday. (Justin Tang/Canadian Press) Justin Trudeau took on a more swashbuckling image Halloween night as he took his family out trick or treating. Canada's next prime minister dressed up as Han Solo of Star Wars fame while Sophie Gregoire wore a Princess Leia costume as they took their three children to knock on...

No casting was announced, although social media speculation immediately centered on Chris Pratt, the ascendant star of “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Jurassic World.” ... Other fans were more ambivalent. “I really don’t know how I feel about this. No one can be Han Solo except Harrison Ford,” said Casey Calvert on Twitter. Disney said the movie’s story will explore how young Han Solo became the smuggler and thief whom Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi first encountered in the cantina at Mos Eisley. “This is the first film we’ve worked on that seems like a good idea to begin with,”...

Harrison Ford has been injured on the set of Star Wars: Episode VII. The actor injured his ankle on Thursday, and was taken to a local hospital. "Harrison Ford sustained an ankle injury during filming today on the set of Star Wars: Episode VII. He was taken to a local hospital and is receiving care. Shooting will continue as planned while he recuperates," said a statement from Disney. A source tells THR that the actor, who reprises his role as Han Solo from the original franchise, was injured by the door of the Millennium Falcon, the spacecraft that his character...

And the message is this: We are still under assault from our betters in the ruling class. You know, the Harvard educated, inside-the-beltway blatherers who wish to smother free speech completely with political correctness; who believe that Socialism really will work this time around, now that they’re in charge; who simply want to control our lives in all ways great (healthcare), small (lightbulbs), and everything in between... The firing of Juan Williams at NPR is a turning point for our nation. Every one of us: conservative, liberal, independent, Tea Partier, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Pastafarian, whatever… Every. One. Of. Us. must...