Making tentpole movies for Disney ain’t like dusting crops, boy. And it seems like the untitled Han Solo spinoff movie may have encountered a few… Imperial entanglements.
Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The LEGO Movie) were fired from the film mid-production earlier this week, and now it looks like Ron Howard is going to step in and (to paraphrase Kylo Ren) finish… what they started.
According to reports, Lord and Miller were ousted over conflicts with veteran Star Wars screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan. Kasdan penned The Empire Strikes Back, considered by many critics to be the best Star Wars movie of all time.
The film was three-quarters of the way done, and changing directors at this stage of the game is pretty much unheard of. So whatever went down, it had to be bad.
In true Hollywood style, even if there are hard feelings you’d never know it on the studio’s end. Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy issued a statement praising the duo’s creativity, she just said that it didn’t mesh with the vision Lucasfilm had for the movie.
“Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are talented filmmakers who have assembled an incredible cast and crew, but it’s become clear that we had different creative visions on this film, and we’ve decided to part ways. A new director will be announced soon,” Kennedy said in a statement.
It’s not you, it’s us. But really, it’s totally you.
Ron Howard is a director’s director, winning numerous awards and being in like Flynn with the higher-ups at Lucasfilm. In fact, Howard directed Willow (which really should’ve become a franchise, IMHO) and was in talks with George Lucas to direct The Phantom Menace back in the day.
Really, everything should be okay. Really.
But this is the second time one of these Star Wars spinoffs has suffered some behind-the-scenes shakeups. Rogue One was subjected to massive reshoots that altered the original ending. But hey, at least Gareth Edwards got to keep his job and the final film got the seal of approval from George Lucas himself. So there’s that.
It’ll be interesting to see how audiences react to Alden Ehrenreich taking over as a young Han Solo, arguably Harrison Ford’s most iconic role ever.
Hey, at least they’re not attempting to de-age Harrison with CGI.
The untitled Han Solo movie is still scheduled for a 2018 release.
[Source: The Hollywood Reporter]
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