A few days ago came the reports that Phil Lord and Chris Miller (collectively, they’ve been involved in such great -to my mind!- works like 21 Jumpstreet, 22 Jumpstreet, The Last Man on Earth, The Lego Movie, etc. etc.) were released from the still untitled Han Solo Early Years movie (I wrote about that, briefly, here).
Though I didn’t mention it in the above post, I strongly suspected that, despite the “nice” public face the duo and Disney tried to make on the split -they cited the bland “creative differences” as the reason- things must have been incredibly heated and far from “bland”.
I suspected that in time bits and pieces of news regarding what really happened between Mr. Lord & Miller and Disney would come out. Some, it appears, has.
This article by Kim Masters and found on The Hollywood Reporter points out a few rumors regarding what may have been going on behind the scenes of the movie:
Rumors may explain why Lucasfilm fired “Han Solo” directors
Now, like the headline notes, these are rumors. So one should take them with the proverbial grain of salt.
While doing so, there were a couple of things that struck me as plausible.
For example:
Producers were also reported to be dissatisfied with the improvisational directing style used by Lord and Miller, which one source claimed led to them being indecisive.
I say this strikes me as plausible because I’ve always felt that Mr. Lord and Miller’s best works -comedies all- had a certain improvisational “feel” to them. In comedies, this can work very well. A joke that seems terrific on the page might not work in “real life” yet if you have a clever enough cast and crew, you may come up with things on the spot that work better.
I personally absolutely loved 22 Jumpstreet, a film that felt free wheeling, and only “liked” 21 Jumpstreet because it felt far more structured compared to its sequel.
However, as action/comedy hybrids, I felt both films were better in the comedy rather than the action aspect. To be blunt: The action scenes were dull in comparison to the hilarious -and often very witty- comedy presented.
While looking over the movies/TV shows Mr. Lord and Miller have been involved in, I find it most curious that Disney/Lucasfilm wanted to use them in this Han Solo movie.
Did they want the film to be a comedy?
The various Star Wars films -the one’s I’ve seen anyway- certainly contained comic elements but they were mostly about the action and special effects, elements I’m not sure I’ve seen Mr. Lord and Miller have handled in that specific capacity before.
Perhaps the most damning rumor about their work on the Han Solo film is this line, also from the article above:
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Lucasfilm was so unhappy with how Lord and Miller were directing star Alden Ehrenreich that they hired an acting coach, unusual for this late in a film shoot.
The later part of this line needs to be emphasized: “Late in a film shoot”. Apparently, the principle photography for the film was nearly done when Mr. Lord and Miller were fired.
So it would seem that Disney/Lucasfilm were trying to see if things could work out but, apparently, there were not and that’s why such an extreme step was finally taken in sacking them.
Will Han Solo be saved by the arrival of director Ron Howard? Will much of the film have to be re-worked?
As I’ve said before many times, I’m not a particularly big Star Wars fan but I am intrigued by all these machinations.
I’ll be most curious to see what happens -and how audiences react- when the film finally makes it to screens.
