Very rarely does a production go from beginning to end without a single problem, if ever at all. Working with people, especially in big productions will always entail having a disagreement on one aspect or another. Truer words cannot be spoken in the case of Solo: A Star Wars Story. This was the first Star Wars movie where the drama was made public and the fans really began to see just how intense it was working under Lucasfilm. Though the final product was good, it was a troubled production which unfortunately did not make any money back, and became the first ever Star Wars movie to bomb at the box office. It made history in more ways than one. This article will explore the troubled production of what would become Ron Howard's Solo: A Star Wars Story.
The idea of a Han Solo solo project was thought up by the creator of Star Wars, George Lucas himself. He initially wanted to show a young Han in Revenge of the Sith helping Obi-Wan Kenobi find General Grievous on Utapau. He would be an orphaned ten-year-old being raised by Chewbacca. The scene was not filmed. Lucas was also working on a series called Star Wars Underworld, where he would show us a bit of Han Solo's origin, and show us how he met Chewbacca. The series was still being planned out by him, and then he sold Lucasfilm to Disney. Lawrence Kasdan was entrusted by Lucas himself to write the screenplay of Solo. The movie was announced to be released after The Force Awakens, but the temporary departure of Kasdan made it impossible to get the film finished in time, so Rogue One took its place.
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were hired as the directors of the Han Solo movie to be released in May, 2018; five months after the second sequel trilogy movie: The Last Jedi. The duo was hired as writers of The Flash, but left the project in order to work on this movie. The Flash was another movie which had a very troubled production. It was announced in 2014 and only released nine years later. Though they left the daunting task of writing for the movie which would go through multiple rewrites and delayed releases, even after completion, they had trouble with Solo as well.
The duo approached the movie in a comedic style. They wanted to make a comedy movie, whereas Lucasfilm was looking for a movie with comedic elements, not necessarily a comedy movie. That was only the first misstep taken. Things were getting heated during production. Lawrence Kasdan was the first person that they butted heads with. Their approach involved a lot of improvisation from the actors, and Lawrence Kasdan wanted them to follow the script as it was written. They argued a lot over their differences, and Lawrence had to always work on keeping them from deviating from his script. Lord and Miller eventually adapted a style of filmmaking in which they would film following the script, but then add scenes that had their style of improvisation, which angered Kasdan even more.
The other problem they had was in the filming style. The footage was to be filmed according to Lucasfilm's demands but Lord and Miller wanted to film things their own way. They filmed it with minimal different angles, making the options limited when editing. They refused to compromise on that. Kasdan was also brought to the set to see how the filming was done, and the directing duo was not happy about that. They felt like he was too involved with the directing aspect of the movie. There were also several anonymous complaints about the set-ups that Lord and Miller were incorporating were delaying productions, and some of the production heads went to complain directly to Kathleen Kennedy. There is another side to the story as well, as the directors felt like they were not being given space to do what they wanted in the story, as they clearly did not have any say in what goes on in their movie.
At some point, there was a hiatus in filming, and the footage was reviewed by Kathleen Kennedy (president of Lucasfilm) and she was very unhappy with the final product. She fired Lord and Miller, along with the editor, Charles Dickens. The official reason given to the public was "irreconcilable differences". Reading into it, we can see just how big those differences were. There was no middle ground between the two parties. The directors wanted something different from what they were hired to do.
Director Ron Howard was hired to direct the movie after Lord and Miller left. It is worth noting that this is not the first Lucasfilm movie he worked on. He also worked on Willow. He was also approached to direct Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, but, as all other directors who refused to direct it, he felt like the project was too big for him. Although Ron Howard had been hired to direct, and all seemed to be heading in a proper direction, there was still the problem of who would get their name in the credits between Ron and the directing duo who left the project and had shot a huge chunk of it already. This is where a Directors Guild rule came in handy. It states that if someone shoots 90% of a movie, they get the directing credit. Howard, unfortunately, did not shoot 90% of the film. He re-shot about 80% of the work he found. Fortunately, there was no bad blood between Lord and Miller and Howard, or anyone else. Ron Howard received the directing credit and as compromise, Lord and Miller were credited as executive producers.
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