The rise and fall of Alden Ehrenreich

When was the last time being cast as Han Solo made somebody less famous?

Trick question! Only two people have ever been cast as Han Solo, and we certainly know how it worked out for Harrison Ford.

But it's a trick question that does have an answer, which is: 2018, when Solo: A Star Wars Story was released.

Have you heard from Alden Ehrenreich since then?

I haven't. But then again, I didn't watch the 2020 TV series Brave New World. But then again, that's the only thing Ehrenreich has appeared in these past five years.

It makes me almost sorry for having written this post, when Ehrenreich was first cast, and the only thing I'd ever seen him in was the disappointing Coens movie Hail, Caesar! Simply put, I questioned his ascendancy ... and it appears everyone else soon started to do the same.

In fact, until I saw him in the movie that prompted the writing of this post, I had forgotten that I had forgotten him. 

Could it really be that Solo was so underwhelmingly received that it did, indeed, put the brakes on Ehrenreich's career?

I wouldn't have thought so, but I don't know what else to conclude. I did a little light googling to find out if I'd missed some story about how he opted out of the entertainment industry, or had some scandal that got him cancelled, but of course I found nothing.

Well, he clearly hasn't opted out of the industry because he has a starring role in Elizabeth Banks' Cocaine Bear.

And guess what? I really liked him! It was by far my favorite Alden Ehrenreich performance to date.

Sadly, he and O'Shea Jackson Jr. were the only things I really liked about the movie. It had a few very fleeting moments of inspiration, when it approached being the thing I wanted it to be, but then would go back to being about as uninteresting as a movie about a bear addicted to cocaine could ever be.

But I felt myself rooting for Ehrenreich, strangely enough, and feeling good about the fact that he has two more movies set for a release in 2023, one of which is from one of the biggest directors we have: Christopher Nolan. 

Now, there are 13 actors listed a head of him on the cast list for Oppenheimer -- but I guess it's a start.

So maybe this piece should really be called "The rise and fall and rise of Alden Ehrenreich." And maybe now he's coming into the charisma that wowed everyone else, but not me, back when he first came on the scene.