Ron Howard Takes Over The ‘Han Solo Movie’ From Fired Phil Lord & Christopher Miller
The upcoming Han Solo movie has landed a major new director in the form of Ron Howard it is being reported today!
According to THR, Howard will be taking over from Phil Lord and Christopher Miller who were fired from the project by Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy after the duo clashed creatively with veteran Star Wars screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan. It would appear Lord & Miller’s improvisational/adlibbing comedic sensibilities were not appreciated by Lawrence and his son Jon Kasdan who co-wrote the script. They felt the directing couple were taking liberties with the script, and more importantly, the character of Han Solo, and strongly voiced these concerns with Kennedy, who stepped in.
Much as I LOVE Lord & Miller’s other work (The Lego Movie, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, The Last Man on Earth), I can rather see the Kasdans and Kennedy’s point of view here. If you’re dealing with a franchise the size of Star Wars, it’s important to film the approved script, not go off on some improvised directing tangent. It’s one thing for actors to improvise lines and give options (e.g. “I love you” “I know” was famously improved by Ford in Empire.) However, it’s entirely a different matter to improvise scenes and the direction. Especially when dealing with a prequel movie like this, starring a beloved character, and something that is part of a huge multi-billion dollar web of interconnected films/comics/tv series etc… It seems Lord & Miller pushed things too far.
So, the question will be, what is Ron Howard stepping into?…
The movie has been shooting since February, and according to reports, was about 3 weeks away from completing principal photography when Kennedy shut them down – Although reshoots were already booked in for the summer (as is normal for films of this size these days.) That’s a very late stage to replace the directors on a project… It also brings up the question of who will end up with the Director credit on the film’s release. Will it purely go to Howard, or will it be Howard, Lord and Miller sharing the title?
Whatever happens, Disney/Lucasfilm are determined to stick to the 25th May 2018 release date for the ‘Han Solo’ movie, so we will find out how things turned out next year!
