New 'Solo: A Star Wars Story' image reveals suspiciously familiar bounty hunter

Empire Magazine has released a brace of exclusives new stills from Solo: A Star Wars Story online, ahead of the new issue hitting shelves later this week.

One shows Alden Ehrenreich’s Han Solo hanging off the side of a high-speed train (known as The Conveyex), but it’s the other picture that’s captured our attention.

It’s the first proper look at Paul Bettany as the film’s main villain Dryden Vos – check it out above. Empire describes Bettany’s character as “a slick and scary gangster”, who recruits a team to pull off a daring heist on the snowy planet of Vandor.

But who’s that stood behind Bettany’s scarred mobster?

Vos’ court seems to be the home of a number of ne’er-do-wells, and is instantly reminiscent of Jabba’s palace in Return of the Jedi. Whoever it is, it’s wearing the Mandalorian-style of armour worn by Boba Fett, the bounty hunter who captures Han Solo in Star Wars: Episode IV: The Empire Strikes Back.

Could it actually be Fett himself?

The fan-favourite bounty hunter has long been rumoured to appear in the Star Wars spin-off and an earlier photo, shared by director Ron Howard from the same interior set, sent fans into frenzied speculation after it showed the outline of the distinctive Mandalorian helmet in the background.

Unfortunately, we don’t think this new photo does confirm whether Boba Fett does actually appear in Solo: A Star Wars Story for certain. The Mandalorian armour seen in the picture looks to be a totally different colour and style to Fett’s.

It’s largely maroon-coloured and seems to have a samurai style that’s wildly different from Fett’s military-style green armour.

The people of Mandalore regularly appear in other works of Star Wars fiction, wearing the Fett-style armour that’s easily identified by the T-shaped visor design of the helmet.

One of the main characters in the animated Star Wars: Rebels TV series is Sabine Wren, a female Mandalorian who wears a similar armour, albeit with a graffiti-daubed helmet.

We think this is simply another Mandalorian lurking in Vos’ company, but we’re not ready to completely rule out a cameo from everyone’s favourite bounty hunter in Solo: A Star Wars Story, which arrives in UK cinemas on 25 May.

The new issue of Empire hits newsstands on Thursday 19 April.

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