If you’re a Star Wars fan, you’ve undoubtedly heard the news
over the last week or so that the directors of the standalone young Han Solo
spin-off film were abruptly fired with several weeks left in the regular
shooting schedule and replaced with veteran director Ron Howard. As a fan both
of Star Wars and behind the scenes movie intrigue, I’ve been following the
story with great interest.
To offer a little background, once George Lucas sold
Lucasflm Ltd. to Disney in 2012, veteran movie producer Kathleen Kennedy was
put in charge and immediately started making plans for new movies. Of course,
there were the films that would continue the original narrative and tell us
more about the Skywalker family but a series of spinoffs was planned as well,
among them one about the adventures of smuggler and scoundrel Han Solo when he
was a young man.
Lucasfilm’s choice to lead the project was really
interesting. The company chose the directing team of Phil Lord and Christopher
Miller. Lord and Miller got their start in television but came to real
prominence when they directed the animated films, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and The Lego
Movie and the raucous live-action comedies 21 Jump Street and its sequel 22
Jump Street. Lord and Miller were known for being visually inventive,
irreverent, and funny. Personally, I found the choice to have them head up the
Han Solo movie to be exciting. It signaled that Lucasfilm wanted a
contemporary, funny, pop-culture literate take on the character, instead of an
overly reverential, too-classic-its-own-good version.
Whatever it was Lucasfilm wanted, it apparently did not get
it from Lord and Miller because with over a month left of principal
photography, they have been given the boot. Replacing directors early in
filming isn’t unheard of and bringing in someone to tweak and conduct reshoots
at the end is pretty standard. But switching horses midstream is really
unusual.
I can see what Lucasfilm execs were thinking. They saw the
success of the Russo brothers, another directing pair who got started in tv
comedy but then went on to become the primary architects of the Marvel movie
shared universe, using their humor and fastworking tv skills to be effective
leaders and good storytellers. No doubt, Lord and Miller were expected to have
the same kind of success.
Unfortunately, reports from the set reveal two men who #1
wanted to make a slapstick, almost parodic version of Han Solo instead of a
serious take with moments of humor and who #2 were overwhelmed by the scope of
such a huge project. A recent Hollywood Reporter story details the crew
standing around all morning while Lord and Miller sat in the cockpit of the
Millennium Falcon trying to devise three set-ups for the day when they should
have already been halfway through working on twelve to fifteen setups.
Lucasfilm boss Kennedy was asking for specific things and Miller and Lord just
weren’t giving them. Another part of the story reveals that the crew erupted
into applause when it was announced that Ron Howard would take over.
When the story first broke, my first thought was, “What
exactly did Lucasfilm think it was getting? If you didn’t want something a
little irreverent and funny, why in the world hire Lord and Miller?” But as
more of the story came to light, it became clear that it wasn’t just a matter
of a few more laughs, but rather an entirely different philosophical take on
the project and a matter of getting the job done in the time allotted with the
money given.
Ron Howard’s films are usually sleek, professional, and
completed on time and under budget. With a few exceptions, they are also
usually pretty boring and forgettable. But Lucasfilm needs a camera cranker and
bean counter at this point, not an artiste. If the May 2018 release date holds,
we’ll see in a little less than a year whether or not we should have a bad feeling
about this.
No comments:
Post a Comment