From the outset, Jump Street duo Phil Lord and Chris Miller were always considered to be a left-field choice for Lucasfilm’s Han Solo spinoff, which is now going by the official title: Solo: A Star Wars Story.
That’s not to say Lord and Miller were a bad choice, necessarily, merely that the pair’s ad-lib filmmaking and improv comedy wasn’t really a good match for the straight-laced Lucasfilm. And sure enough, the Powers That Be decided to part ways with the directing duo – a fate which later befell Colin Trevorrow, who bowed out of Episode IX only to be replaced by J.J. Abrams.
It’s a fitting substitution, really, given Abrams was the one who launched Lucasfilm’s current Star Wars trilogy through The Force Awakens. But for Solo, the studio turned to a known quantity: Ron Howard.
That was back in June of 2017, and since then, fans have wondered how much might have changed after the director came on board. We’ve heard in the past that a lot more of the film was reshot than originally intended, but according to Donald Glover at least, the whole shake-up behind the scenes was pretty seamless.
When asked how Ron Howard replacing Lord and Miller affected the production, he said:
“It didn’t really. I think we were never faced with anything like that and he did a good job of coming in and didn’t want us to change what we were doing at all. He wanted us to be comfortable with our vision.”
He was then quizzed on how many of his scenes had to be reshot, to which he replied, “Not a ton.” That’s a bit surprising to hear, as like we said above, we’d been told that most of the film had to be overhauled. Maybe Glover is just doing his best to ease our fears? Or perhaps those initial reports were blown out of proportion? At this point, we can’t say for sure and frankly, we’ll probably never really know the true answer.
Finally, when speaking about what it was like portraying the beloved Lando Calrissian, the actor said:
“It’s weird. I didn’t have a lot of stress on me,” Glover said. “This is the first time in a long time, I was just acting. Most of the time, I have to write or do music. This time I woke up and got to be somebody else and the stress wasn’t there for me.”
Lando, who was played so brilliantly by Billy Dee Williams in the original Star Wars trilogy, represents a fairly different character for Donald Glover to sink his teeth into. A suave charm will be nigh on mandatory, while the chemistry between both him and Alden Ehrenreich’s younger Han will arguably be one of the film’s crucial deciding factors. Will the actor be able to pull it off? Without any footage having been released just yet, it’s impossible to say, but we’re certainly hopeful.
Solo: A Star Wars Story has previously been compared to an old-school Western, albeit with blasters and a certain Millennium Falcon. And though The Last Jedi is currently dominating theaters the world over, we only have a handful of months to wait before the next Star Wars movie. And isn’t that exciting?