Either way, we now know that Clint Howard will continue his regular gig of showing up in movies directed by his brother.
Instead Ron Howard likely just found a small part that needed an actor and threw his brother at the job, as he does.
It doesn’t even have any of our stars in it, so there’s no way to tell whether Howard’s character is friend or foe to our heroes.
All we know is that odds are it’s a fairly small part, as he almost certainly hadn’t been cast by the previous directors because that would be the world’s strangest coincidence.