It Was Ron Howard Who “Lobbied Hard” For That Shocking Cameo In Solo

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Solo: A Star Wars Story.

The Star Wars franchise has always had the tradition of adding in cool cameos into its films, but fans were pretty surprised when they saw an unexpected face in Solo: A Star Wars Story.

At the very end of the film, Han (Alden Ehrenreich) is persuaded by Qi'ra (Emilia Clarke) to go and save Chewie from Beckett (Woody Harrelson). Though Qi'ra promises that she's right behind him, Han's former lover betrays him by contacting the head of the Crimson Dawn, which turns out to be none other than Maul.

It was the first time fans got to see Maul on the big screen again since the character's debut in Star Wars: Episode I – A Phantom Menace and it turns out that it was director Ron Howard who had pushed for the cameo.

Speaking in an interview with Slash Film, Howard opened up about Maul's scene, saying that in the script for Solo, Maul was a nameless character that writers Lawrence and Jon Kasdan only referred to as "Boss."

Though the creative team still hadn't been able to decide who the kingpin would be, Maul was one of the potential characters for the role. When Howard found out Maul was one of them, he lobbied for the cameo.

"It just sort of said "Boss". And I thought when I came in, I assumed they knew who it was and they were just keeping it under wraps. And they didn't. But Maul was listed as one of the candidates. And I lobbied hard for that. I thought that made a lot of sense to me. I found that character to be really effective. And I knew for a fact, without asking directly and giving anything away, my son Reed who just turned 31, who's a dedicated Star Wars fan, he's a golfer. He's not in the business. Dedicated Star Wars fan. I just whispered that possibility and he just thought that would be incredibly cool. And so for that generation, I thought, well that was gonna be a pretty interesting idea. And doing a little more research and understanding sort of how the character had worked elsewhere, I thought it was good. And the Kasdan's were on board with that."

Maul's inclusion in the film has a whole lot of implications for the Star Wars franchise. Given the tone of the film, does Maul's cameo mean that we'll be seeing more of the former Sith Lord in future Solo movies? Guess we'll have to wait and see.

Solo: A Star Wars Story is currently screening in cinemas.

Read: Han and Chewie Meet for the First Time in Concept Art for Solo: A Star Wars Story