We know that Solo: A Star Wars Story has been beleaguered by one of the most chaotic production cycles to afflict a big-budget Hollywood movie in recent memory. Its directors got the boot, its lead actor needed an acting coach, and – possibly as a result of these things – we have barely seen the film outside one full teaser, despite the fact it is coming out in a matter of weeks.
There have been whispers and reports from the Solo set over the past few months, but thanks to Vulture we have a more cohesive picture of what was actually going down during all the chaos. The publication spoke to an unnamed actor (cue sinister music here) who is clearly bound by an NDA but thought that divulging juicy details about the troubled production was simply too great a responsibility to dodge.
The actor says that initial directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller were in way over their heads, and didn’t seem to intuitively grasp the process behind directing a large-scale blockbuster. The anonymous tipster says the pair are better suited for smaller projects, like their previous films 21 Jump Street and The Lego Movie. Apparently, they got their actors to shoot numerous takes for single scenes with no clear reason why they were getting multiple takes.
“Phil and Chris are good directors, but they weren’t prepared for Star Wars,” the source told Vulture. “After the 25th take, the actors are looking at each other like, ‘This is getting weird.’”
By contrast, replacement director Ron Howard was described as a consummate professional who immediately grasped the requirements of the shoot and put the cast at ease. The source was mum on just how much of Lord and Miller’s work Howard reshot… but it sure seems like it was a lot. “It’s exactly the same script. They’re filming exactly the same things. There’s nothing new,” says the actor.
And the persistent rumours that Han actor Alden Ehrenreich had to be tutored by an acting coach were true, though the source says that it was for the best despite its bruising effect on his ego. “You could see his acting became more relaxed. He became more Harrison [Ford]-like.”
Does this mean its going to be a better movie? The actor has no clue, given the fact that films really are made or broken in the editing phase. Morale improved by “leaps and bounds” after Howard’s arrival, but whether or not that’ll make for a good movie is a different question entirely.
