Original Solo: A Star Wars Story directors Christopher Miller and Phil Lord reflect on their time spent on the iconic franchise.
The behind-the-scenes drama of Solo: A Star Wars Story is one that is arguably more interesting than the film itself. Originally 21 Jump Street directors Christopher Miller and Phil Lord were set to direct the movie and got through the majority of filming it. For reasons that have always been a bit vague, the two were fired from the Star Wars film and were replaced by Ron Howard.
The end result was a perfectly adequate Star Wars film with critics reacting mostly positively to the movie. Audiences, however, weren’t particularly interested in it. Solo would only earn $392M worldwide on what was eventually reported to be a $275M budget. This caused Disney and LucasFilm to cancel all of their various individual Star Wars films and eventually contributed to the studio’s focus on Disney Plus installments for the franchise.
In a recent interview on The Happy, Sad, Confused podcast, the two directors opened up about their time on Solo: A Star Wars Story and reflected on the chance to work on the franchise. Lord started by giving a bit on inside as to what they were thinking when they made the film and what they took away from it:
“We’ve always wanted to make projects that are, like Han, a maverick, and so that’s what we were always trying to do, that’s what we were hoping to do with those movies. It was funny, about [the original] Star Wars, it’s an independent film made outside the Hollywood system. And Han is the spirit of that kind of independence and that’s why we were always inspired to work on that with everybody.
The good news is, they can’t take away what you learned. We learned so much. We got to work with the greatest people, we made so many friends. We, what we call in animation, put ‘pencil miles’ under our belts and it made us better filmmakers in the long run. So, in a funny way, there’s obviously a lot of negative emotions associated with that, but the way I feel about it now, like I feel about all these projects, which is you’re just trying to become better and learn and collaborate with people and that doesn’t go away.”
Miller then revealed how their work on Solo has affected how they view the Star Wars films:
“It’s certainly colored [the experience], you also know how the sausage is made, so you’re actually watching [and say], ‘Oh, I know where that prop came from. I saw that prop in the prop warehouse.’ That sort of thing, so it’s interesting in that way.”
Lord went on to state that, despite their work on Solo: A Star Wars Story they were still ready to root for the other people behind the films:
“And it’s very easy to root for [Star Wars: The Last Jedi writer/director] Rian Johnson, for example. Just having spent a lot of time with him and watching his movie come together. It was really easy to root for [Rogue One: A Star Wars Story director] Gareth [Edwards], having been on the ground watching him put that together. And on and on, all through the ILM group, there’s a lot of great craftspeople that we love rooting for. The creature shop people that are amazing.”
Here is the official synopsis for Solo: A Star Wars Story:
Board the Millennium Falcon and journey to a galaxy far, far away in Solo: A Star Wars Story, an all-new adventure with the most beloved scoundrel in the galaxy. Through a series of daring escapades deep within a dark and dangerous criminal underworld, Han Solo meets his mighty future copilot Chewbacca and encounters the notorious gambler Lando Calrissian, in a journey that will set the course of one of the Star Wars saga’s most unlikely heroes.
Directed by Ron Howard from a script written by Lawrence Kasdan and son Jon Kasdan, Solo: A Star Wars Story stars Alden Ehrenreich, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover, Thandiwe Newton, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Joonas Suotamo, and Paul Bettany.
Solo: A Star Wars Story is available on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-Ray, DVD, and Digital. Stay tuned for all the latest news surrounding the future of the franchise and be sure to subscribe to Heroic Hollywood’s YouTube channel for more original video content.
Source: Happy, Sad, Confused
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