got a bad feeling about this

Lord and Miller’s Han Solo Movie Was Doomed from the Start: All the Messy Details

“I don’t know if it’s because there were two of them, but they were not decisive.”
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Chris Miller and Phil Lord at the Star Wars Celebration 2016 in London on July 17, 2016.By Ben A. Pruchnie/Getty Images.

It was a culture clash from the very beginning. Though directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller seemed like the perfect pair to helm the upcoming stand-alone Han Solo film, touching up the decades-old franchise with their trademark humor and forward-thinking charm, a new report from The Hollywood Reporter indicates just how much the duo butted heads with Lucasfilm—a mismatch that eventually led to the directors being fired from the project last week. The firing sent shock waves through the Star Wars fandom, an unprecedented decision that cast the new spin-off in a troubling light. Now it’s become clear that the pairing might have been doomed from the start.

The directors rankled against Lucasfilm’s tight grip on the film, per T.H.R.’s detail-heavy report. They were dealing with “extreme scheduling constraints,” a source says, and “were never given enough days for each scene from the very beginning.” There was also eyebrow raising over the types of shots the directors favored. For example, there was one shoot day this past month for which the pair only used three different camera setups for a scene, versus the typical “12 to 15 that Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy had expected.”

Kennedy hired the pair based on their reputation for invigorating well-known characters with new style and turning movies into box-office hits, as they did with The Lego Movie and 21 Jump Street. However, the Han Solo spin-off was a much bigger project than either of those films, and their laid-back, improvisational directing style clashed with the responsibilities of a sprawling Star Wars set. “You have to make decisions much earlier than what they’re used to,” one source told T.H.R. “I don’t know if it’s because there were two of them, but they were not decisive.” Representatives for Lucasfilm have not yet responded to Vanity Fair’s request for comment.

Their choice to let actors improvise lines also infuriated screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan, who prefers that actors follow a carefully written script(he reportedly wasn’t a fan of the dailies he was seeing). There were other problems with the acting itself: Lucasfilm execs reportedly weren’t thrilled with Alden Ehrenreich’s performance as the young Han. In May, the directors made the unusual call to bring in an acting coach for him, after months of shooting had already elapsed.

Kennedy’s solution to assuage both Kasdan and the director was to have Kasdan act as a sort of shadow director, the way Tony Gilroy did for the less-experienced Gareth Edwards on Rogue One. However, Lord and Miller bristled against that move until the power clashes pushed Kennedy to fire them—regardless of the publicity backlash—and replace them with director Ron Howard, the Oscar-winning director whose relationship with Lucasfilm stretches back to a galaxy far, far away . . . a.k.a. the pre-Star Wars days. The news was such a relief to the crew that they reportedly broke out into applause by the end of the new director announcement meeting, per T.H.R., a celebration that was somber but “in support of the movie.”

Lord and Miller have e-mailed with Howard since then, a source says, and have been “very supportive, very elegant.” He’ll have to finish out the next few weeks of shooting, as well as re-shoots, which won’t be complete until July. Still, regardless of his work, much of Lord and Miller’s material will be “very usable,” and the still untitled spin-off will no doubt bear much of their print as filmmakers—a bittersweet end to Kennedy’s original vision to hand over the franchise to fresh voices.

This post has been updated to reflect the nature of the crew’s applause.