You come at the king, you best not miss. Unless you’re execs of the Han Solo movie and planning reshoots, because, well, you can just cut Michael K. Williams’ character entirely thanks to scheduling issues. Maybe there just wasn’t enough space for him. Hello? *taps mic* Is this thing on?
Star of The Wire and, latterly, part of the Assassin’s Creed movie, Michael K. Williams revealed in an interview with Deadline that the new direction Ron Howard wanted to take the movie meant more shoots for Williams, which didn’t fit in with his busy schedule.
Williams is currently filming The Red Sea Diving Report in Africa, with a Sundance television series Hap & Leonard on the way, and that meant no dice on Lucasfilm’s part, as Williams explains, "I’m not going to be back on the market until the end of November… and for them to wait that long for me, that would have pushed back the release date, which I believe is in May 2018. They wanted me now; I couldn’t go."
What did we miss out on? Williams was apparently lined up to play a half-human, half-animal character that he said he was "proud" to play.
It might not be the last time we see Williams stepping into a galaxy far, far away, though: "I don’t think that me not being in the Star Wars family is final," Williams hints, "I left with a very good taste in my mouth about the whole family, and I hope that I left a good taste in their mouth. They’re a great group of people, the Lucas family."
Image: Lucasfilm
