Solo: A Star Wars Story’s turbulent production is no secret to the franchise’s devout fanatics and cinephiles in general. The Han Solo origin pic first encountered trouble when Lucasfilm and original co-directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller parted ways over “creative differences,” which resulted in two-time Academy Award winner Ron Howard being brought onboard to finish directing the movie.
Combined with massive reshoots and criticism of the film’s lead performer by an unnamed source close to the set, and Solo: A Star Wars Story wasn’t precisely tracking well with its target audience. But things have turned around for the hotly-anticipated blockbuster in recent weeks. Among other things, the movie’s premiere was moved to a much more significant venue, the 71st Cannes Film Festival, and Ron Howard put worries that star Alden Ehrenreich wasn’t “good enough” to rest.
Now, with things finally looking up and Solo: A Star Wars Story’s world premiere less than a month away, screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan has opened up about the movie’s troubled production. In a sit-down with Empire Magazine, Kasdan discussed Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s departure and his take on the reasoning behind it.
“These movies are so gigantic; it is a little hard to identify exactly what moving part changes when there is a change of direction . But this movie had to go in a different direction. I’m a great believer that whatever preconceptions you have going into a movie, whatever resistance you might have, whatever excitement you may have because you’re going to see a familiar character, all bets are off about three minutes into the movie.”
While speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy reverberated a feeling similar to that of Kasdan, saying:
“I think these guys are hilarious, but they come from a background of animation and sketch comedy and when you are making these movies you can do that and there’s plenty of room for improvisation, we do that all the time. But it has to be inside of a highly structured process or you can’t get the work done and you can’t move the armies of people to anticipate and have things ready. So, it literally came down to process. Just getting it done.”
According to Phil Lord, speaking on behalf of Chris Miller as well, there’s no ill will between themselves and anyone associated with the production, as he said:
“Sometimes people break up, and it’s really sad, and it’s really disappointing, but it happens and we learned a lot from our collaborators and we’re better filmmakers for it. We’re really proud of the work we did on the movie and we wish everybody the best.”
Ron Howard will be receiving the sole director credit on Solo, with Lord and Miller being credited as executive producers. And we’ll get to see whether or not the spinoff was able to make it through its rocky production when Solo: A Star Wars Story opens in theaters next month on May 25th.
