It’s certainly no secret that Solo: A Star Wars Story turned into an absolute mess last summer when directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller left the production with just three and a half weeks of shooting due to creative differences they had with Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and screenwriter-producer Lawrence Kasdan.
The news of Lord and Miller’s departure was shocking, to say the least, and Kennedy had to scramble to find a replacement for the duo in order to meet a strict deadline. Soon enough, Lucasfilm announced that Ron Howard had signed on to take over directing duties on Solo and that filming would resume just a few weeks later.
“I know Chris and Phil. They’re incredibly talented guys, and all anyone at Imagine Entertainment wants to do is find a way to work with Chris and Phil, and that’s every bit as much the case today as ever,” Howard told Entertainment Weekly. “But when I learned that this change was happening, it just came in a moment where I was working on lots of new projects for Imagine, and I had not planned to direct anything last year. So then this came my way, and I was talking to Kathy, and the now tragically late Alli Shearmur, an old friend. I was reluctant, but I also began to feel that I could help.”
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He continued, “It’s disappointing that any company ever feels like they have to make a change like that. It’s rough on everybody and disappointing for everybody, and I’ve just tried to come in and — of course, Phil and Chris’s fingerprints are all over the movie, given how much they put into it and the time they put into it. I hope fans won’t even think about how the movie was made. They should just lose themselves in it.”
It’s still questionable as to why Lord and Miller never addressed their creative differences with Kennedy and Kasdan sooner and vice versa, but it’s too late for that now. What’s done is done, and it should be interesting to see what Howard has put together with Solo: A Star Wars Story, which stars Alden Ehrenreich, Donald Glover, Emilia Clarke, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Thandie Newton, and Joonas Suotamo, when the film hits theaters on May 25.