The “Star Wars” installment set for 2017 may have found its villain. The Wrap is reporting that “Traffic” star Benicio Del Toro is being eyed for the part.
Del Toro would have to live up to perhaps the most memorable and iconic movie villain of them all — Darth Vader — though he’ll have an easier job topping the villains of the prequels, like the under-developed Count Dooku (no disrespect to late actor Christopher Lee), the boring General Grievous and the killed-too-soon Darth Maul.
As The Wrap pointed out, Puerto Rico-born Del Toro would continue J.J. Abrams endeavor to bring diversity to the franchise. (Notice that the first faces you see in the first “Force Awakens” preview, the faces Disney/Lucasfilm chose to have ignite the early excitement for the film, were not Harrison Ford or Mark Hamill but were a black man and a woman.)
Rian Johnson is directing “Episode: VIII,” which will open in theaters on May 26, 2017. — Emily Rome
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