We're still excited for the Han Solo film, right? Right?!
Things seem to be on incredibly shaky ground for the Star Wars spin-off. As you know, directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord were sacked from the production with only three weeks left in the schedule. Disney replaced them with Ron "Red Wonder" Howard, a safe choice for a massive, important film this close to being done. People can rag on him all they want but, at the end of the day, he's not a bad guy to have sitting in the cockpit. Between Miller and Lord's extensive work and Howard's steady hand, things seemed to be on track for the movie.
Well, maybe not. We now have more information about drama on set and things sound decidedly tricky. The Hollywood Reporter has all the details and it's worth a read. Not only were Miller and Lord super unhappy, they also felt like they had "zero creative freedom" from the start. Great, just what directors are looking for: a suffocatingly stubborn studio unwilling to give you any freedom. A win for creativity!
But there is more than just Lord and Miller's dissatisfaction with Lucasfilm and Kathleen Kennedy. The powers that be abruptly replaced editor Chris Dickens with Pietro Scalia (awkward) and also hired an acting coach for the movie's star Alden Ehrenreich (super awkward). As THR notes, hiring an acting coach isn't the biggest deal in the world but it's certainly surprising given the size of this project and the production progress already made. It raises the question: what the hell was Lucasfilm thinking? Why hire Lord and Miller (and Dickens and Ehrenreich) if they weren't completely sold on them? Why push ahead at full speed if the vision of the film wasn't crystal clear? And, most importantly, why let things get so far if it wasn't going smoothly?
We're still excited for the Han Solo film because, well, of course we are. But this drip-drip-drip of bad news isn't giving us as much hope as we'd like.
Head over to THR to get even more juicy details.