Well, that didn’t take long. After speculation following Phil Lord and Christopher Miller‘s booting from the Han Solo movie, Ron Howard has officially been named as the replacement director.
“At Lucasfilm, we believe the highest goal of each film is to delight, carrying forward the spirit of the saga that George Lucas began 40 years ago,” said Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm, in a statement.
“With that in mind, we’re thrilled to announce that Ron Howard will step in to direct the untitled Han Solo film. We have a wonderful script, an incredible cast and crew and the absolute commitment to make a great movie.”
Lord and Miller (Cloudy with a Chance Of Meatballs, The Lego Movie), known best for harnessing the kind of frenetic energy you could really see working on a Han Solo flick, apparently didn’t grok very well with the controlling way shit is run at LucasFilm and Disney. According to a scoop by Variety, the directors “weren’t given the leeway to do what they had to do,” because of the very top-down way Star Wars films are made.
Nonetheless, the statement from Kennedy at the time was pretty diplomatic, despite the fact there were obvious creative tensions. Variety also stresses that the pair were fired – they didn’t walk away from this one voluntarily.
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are talented filmmakers who have assembled an incredible cast and crew, but it’s become clear that we had different creative visions on this film, and we’ve decided to part ways. A new director will be announced soon.
The film is about three-quarters through principal photography, and replacing a director at that point in a major studio picture is somewhere between ‘nuts’ and ‘completely insane’. Especially if – as the reports indicate – it was because of a creative struggle.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Howard will meet the cast, who are described as “rattled” by the firing. In case you forgot the cast: Alden Ehrenreich is playing Solo, Donald Glover is playing Lando Calrissian, with Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke and Thandie Newton in as-yet unspecified roles.
Howard is best known – apart from his massively iconic voiceover work on Arrested Development – for films like Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind and The Da Vinci Code. His hire is not just creative but also strategic: sources say that he’ll be a calming presence on set, and his previous work within big studios means he probably won’t rock the boat as much as the last two directors.
Let’s see how this goes, hey?
Source: The Hollywood Reporter.
Photo: Star Wars.
