‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this.’
The new Han Solo spin-off has been on hiatus since the announcement of directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller exiting the movie and Ron Howard taking the reins. Happy days for Ron, but it seemed like a strange choice and a little ominous this late in the production stages. Now, thanks to reports from The Hollywood Reporter, maybe we can shed a bit more light on the trouble bringing the galaxy’s favourite space smuggler to the screen.
It is believed that the directors of 21 Jump Street and The LEGO Movie were brought on board to make the next instalment in Lucasfilm’s push into standalone Star Wars movies a lot more humorous. However, it seems that Lord and Miller have clashed horns with producer Kathleen Kennedy and writer Lawrence Kasdan, with claims that they did not like the direction the pair were taking the movie. The directorial duo were using a lot of improvised scenes in an attempt to give the actors some creative licence and try to get the best out of their performances. Kasdan did not like that one bit, a source told HR:
“Lawrence Kasdan would not allow this and demanded that every line was said word for word. To appease him and the studio, Lord and Miller would do several takes exactly as written and then shoot additional takes.”
Kennedy and Kasdan were unhappy that Lord and Miller were essentially making a comedy out of their Han Solo movie. Lucasfilm editor Chris Dickens (Macbeth) was replaced when production moved, and Pietro Scalia (Alien: Covenant, Th Martian) joined and started piecing the footage together. The head honchos didn’t particularly like the performance they were seeing from lead Alden Ehrenreich, and an acting coach was even brought in to try and right the ship. The directors, in turn, were unhappy that they had lost their creative control. There is a chance that it was a mutual decision to part ways but it doesn’t exactly fill the fans with much confidence, either way. There’s really only one way to really settle this… Lightsaber fight!
Production will resume in July but whether that would affect the May 2018 release date is yet to be seen.