After years of speculation (and the toys being only 6 months away), Solo: A Star Wars Story has been revealed as the official title for 2018's Star Wars movie.

That was fast.   He of Willow and Happy Days is back, so says StarWars.com with Ron Howard to Assume Directorial Duties on the Untitled Han Solo Film.  The release date remains unchanged - May 25, 2018 - and part of that official announcement is as follows:

Lucasfilm is pleased to announce that Academy Award-winning filmmaker Ron Howard has been named director of the untitled Han Solo film.

The Han Solo directors are out?  Not much is known, other than this "A Message from Lucasfilm Regarding the Untitled Han Solo Film" post in which Lucasfilm says:

The untitled Han Solo film will move forward with a directorial change.

“Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are talented filmmakers who have assembled an incredible cast and crew, but it’s become clear that we had different creative visions on this film, and we’ve decided to part ways. A new director will be announced soon,” said Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm.

Variety has a big story on a bunch of new movie release dates from Disney.   Of particular note, the as-of-yet untitled Episode IX has been given a date of May 24, 2019.  For those of you keeping track, the as-of-yet-Untitled Han Solo movie is set for May 2018 (still), and that's only 6 months after The Last Jedi hits theaters in December of this year.  

We don't know exactly why they're changing seasons for Star Wars, although it might have something to do with getting the heck out of the way of Avatar sequels or positioning Star Wars to take over for Marvel, which may be undergoing a retool of its own.   Indiana Jones 5 was also delayed to July of 2020.

From a toy business perspective, this could actually be really good news for Star Wars fans.  

Posted by director Chris Miller, on Twitter, we see that filming has commenced on the first and also untitled Han Solo anthology film.  Its working title is "Red Cup"  as in Solo will no doubt inspire new waves of fan merchandise. (I'd buy a Red Cup logo shirt.)   The film is supposedly slated for May 2018 but it would not surprise me if that moved.

Han
First
Shot pic.twitter.com/KReR6rgKFT

— Chris Miller (@chrizmillr) January 30, 2017