Disney ploughs £200m into new frontier for Solo: A Star Wars Story

Disney has taken a £200 million bet that the Star Wars franchise will deliver force to its earnings, it emerged on Friday.

The studio has spent £203.4 million on Solo: A Star Wars Story, the spin-off which follows iconic hero Han Solo and will be released Friday, according to fresh accounts seen by the Standard.

Movie budgets are usually kept secret but the figure appears in accounts for a subsidiary of Disney’s European holding company.

The film has proved expensive as it was originally directed by Philip Lord and Christopher Miller, the duo behind 2014 hit The Lego Movie.

However, they were replaced in June last year with Oscar-winning director Ron Howard who re-shot scenes that had already been filmed.

The £200 million bill — which encompasses filming at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire — covers the two years and three months to November 11 last year and is expected to rise as it doesn’t include post-production.

It is the fourth Star Wars film that Disney has made since it bought Lucasfilm, the parent company of the franchise, from its founder George Lucas for $4 billion (£3 billion) in 2012.

The ready supply of skilled workers is a key reason for shooting movies in Britain, and the financial statements for Solo show that £25.2 million was spent on production staff.

That doesn’t include freelancers and self-employed workers, who make up the vast majority of personnel on a movie.

The film tells the origin of the space adventurer originally played by Harrison Ford and now played by new star Alden Ehrenreich.