SOLO: A Star Wars Story - May 25th - "I've Got a Bad Feeling About This"

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AndyDursin
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SOLO: A Star Wars Story - May 25th - "I've Got a Bad Feeling About This"

#1 Post by AndyDursin »

This is absolutely unreal.

Maybe Disney will hire Tony Gilroy and right the ship again? Or just hire Autobots to make these films in the first place? It's obviously clear that like ROGUE ONE Disney didn't like what they were seeing....AGAIN!

The chances of this movie sucking are higher now either way. Thanks Kathleen Kennedy and Disney focus groups! Lol
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are no longer directing the Han Solo Star Wars spinoff.

"Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are talented filmmakers who have assembled an incredible cast and crew, but it’s become clear that we had different creative visions on this film, and we’ve decided to part ways. A new director will be announced soon," Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm, said Tuesday in a statement.

"Unfortunately, our vision and process weren’t aligned with our partners on this project," a statement from Lord and Miller read. "We normally aren’t fans of the phrase 'creative differences' but for once this cliché is true. We are really proud of the amazing and world-class work of our cast and crew.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-v ... rs-1015419

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AndyDursin
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Re: HAN SOLO Directors Quit!

#2 Post by AndyDursin »

The larger thing this again shows is that directors no longer matter on most of these big films. Why else would guys with 1 indie drama end up helming the likes of JURASSIC WORLD and KONG SKULL ISLAND? Because they are yes men just doing the studio's bidding. These movies all direct themselves now and there's no creative stamp on hardly any of them.

Lord and Miller probably wanted to do their thing with this movie and Disney won't let them. Pathetic but a sad sign of the times. It's only going to get worse.

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Monterey Jack
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Re: HAN SOLO Directors Quit!

#3 Post by Monterey Jack »

It's Ant-Man all over again. :? If the studio wanted a Brett Ratner yes-man to churn out polished "product" instead of something with any pesky auteurist stamp on it, then why didn't they hire someone like Ratner in the first place? Yeah, after all of the director-swapping and reshoots, I enjoyed the final versions of Ant-Man and Rogue One just fine, but I would have preferred seeing filmmakers as eccentric and unique as Edgar Wright and Lord/Miller allowed to riff on an established universe and add their own spin to them.

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AndyDursin
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Re: HAN SOLO Directors Quit!

#4 Post by AndyDursin »

I didn't like ROGUE ONE much at all, and it's shocking to me Kennedy and her Disney cohorts didn't have THIS ship straightened out before it set sail after what happened with that debacle.

And it's even weirder than ANT-MAN -- much stranger. I mean, it's one thing to have someone work so hard on a movie, then pull out before shooting over creative differences and have the studio implement a host of changes like ANT-MAN. Or have the director axed after a few days or what not. That kind of thing does happen (happened on WARGAMES, happened on TOMBSTONE, etc.) But this wasn't weeks -- like, say, JAWS 2 -- it's literally MONTHS of filming! Just amazing.

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AndyDursin
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Re: HAN SOLO Directors Quit!

#5 Post by AndyDursin »

No shocker, Kathleen Kennedy and Lawrence Kasdan apparently clashed with Lord and Miller on the set from the get-go. They were also fired by Lucasfilm, they did not quit voluntarily.

Hard to tell who's right or who's wrong, but the bottom line is maybe they shouldn't have been making this film in the first place. Or if you DO hire Lord and Miller, have them work with original characters who you don't care about in terms of "canon" and what not. :?
Miller and Lord were stunned to find that they were not being granted freedom to run the production in the manner that they were accustomed to. They balked at Kennedy’s tight control on the set.

A person with knowledge of the production said that the chemistry between the directors and Kennedy was never right.

“It was a culture clash from day one,” the source said. “She didn’t even like the way they folded their socks.”

The source said that while Lord and Miller were supposedly hired for their vision and distinctive brand of filmmaking when it came to the “Star Wars” production, Kennedy did not approve of their shooting style and process of interacting with actors and crew. “They weren’t given the leeway to do what they had to do,” the source said.

The duo also clashed with Kasdan, who has been an integral creative part of several “Star Wars” movies, dating back the the 1980 “The Empire Strikes Back.” Like Kennedy, he questioned many of the pair’s directing choices.

"Kathy, her team and Larry Kasdan have been doing it their way for a very long time. They know how the cheese is made and that’s how they want it made,” said the source. “It became a very polarizing set.”

Kennedy had her own ideas about how the film should be shot. In an interview with Variety last year, she said she wanted the film to have “…a heist or Western type feel,” adding, “We’ve talked about [Frederic] Remington and those primary colors that are used in his paintings defining the look and feel of the film.”

Some insiders believe that while Kennedy wants to make a splash by hiring young indie directors such as Gareth Edwards (“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”) and Rian Johnson (“Star Wars: The Last Jedi”), she’s ultimately unwilling to empower them to make their own creative decisions.

Unlike Edwards and Johnson, Miller and Lord felt they had earned their stripes, having worked extensively in the major studio system.

The directors did not leave the production voluntarily, but were fired by LucasFilm. The decision comes as the Han Solo film still has several weeks left to shoot, according to another individual with knowledge of the production. An additional several weeks of reshoots have been planned to take place later this summer.
http://variety.com/2017/film/news/star- ... 202473919/

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Re: HAN SOLO Directors Fired by Kathleen Kennedy

#6 Post by AndyDursin »

Too bad this didn't happen a couple of years ago or we might've gotten a Horner Star Wars score! :(

My guess is this happens, seeing as Howard has turned out one dud after another of late.
EXCLUSIVE: Deadline hears that Ron Howard has emerged as front-runner to replace Phil Lord & Christopher Miller on the untitled Han Solo Star Wars spinoff film. Disney dropped a shocker this afternoon with the announcement that the duo exited a picture that has been in production since February at London’s Pinewood Studios. This after an inability to recover from creative rifts with Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan. The latter has been mentioned as possible to step in, but I’m putting my money on Howard.


http://deadline.com/2017/06/ron-howard- ... 202117289/

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Paul MacLean
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Re: HAN SOLO Directors Fired; Ron Howard to Replace?

#7 Post by Paul MacLean »

Take it for what it's worth, but according to this site, they were fired because Kennedy and Kasdan thought their approach to the material was "too comic"...

http://comicbooksgalaxy.com/han-solo-director-fired/

I don't if it's true or not, but I'll say this -- after the dour, dreary Rogue One, we could do with a "more comedic" Star Wars movie.

Humor would certainly not be out of place in a movie about Han Solo (whose character was the source of nearly all the comedy in the original films)...

Image

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Re: HAN SOLO Directors Fired; Ron Howard to Replace?

#8 Post by AndyDursin »

"Too comic"? For real? LOL. Lord and Miller are ex-animators who've made nothing other than comedies -- what exactly did they think they were getting with hiring them? I mean, Gareth Edwards' movies are dark and humorless. What exactly did they think they were getting when they hired him for ROGUE ONE? It's insane, really.

This is the kind of thing where George Lucas would've been better off retaining the rights to this series for himself. He could've "passed the baton" to other filmmakers and yet retained executive control and reaped all the profits -- he wouldn't have gotten the Disney windfall, but I'm sure there's a part of him now that wishes he had kept his hand in the game, at least enough to let someone else do the job.

With Disney in control, it's not a filmmaker, it's a mega-corporation, one of the largest in the world, overseeing the brand now, and they clearly don't care about making movies. They need products and cannot afford to let some upstart group of directors go and "do their thing" -- even if they hired them to begin with.

I agree with you Paul, ROGUE ONE certainly needed humor, and this would have been the right tonic for that kind of movie. You'd have thought Lord and Miller's comic sensibilities might've resulted in something at least fun -- probably nothing significant from a cinematic standpoint, but an OK way to kill a couple of hours -- but we're never going to see that now.

It's a dark time in Hollywood. They keep making crap and tap hired hands from indies just to do their bidding -- how else to explain, say, the "Russo Brothers" getting CAPTAIN AMERICA CIVIL WAR, or Colin Trevorrow doing JURASSIC WORLD, or that other indie guy who did KONG SKULL ISLAND. They weren't hired for their "auteurism," they weren't hired for some unique cinematic vision, they were hired to do whatever the suits wanted.

When someone tries to place "their stamp" on something, often times they get the ax...the weird thing is how far into SHOOTING this movie was before Disney fired someone. That's the really odd thing. It also shows Disney is doing this schedule with the Star Wars brand absolutely to maximize profits -- things like scripts and careful consideration of the property itself is coming second to the release date, which is what we said years ago.

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Re: HAN SOLO Directors Fired; Ron Howard to Replace?

#9 Post by Eric W. »

Disney is sure going to milk this thing for all its worth and run it into the ground, Cinderella 3 style.

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Re: HAN SOLO Directors Fired; Ron Howard to Replace?

#10 Post by AndyDursin »

Opie is confirmed, looking to break his string of box-office bombs:

http://www.starwars.com/news/ron-howard ... C946758536
Lucasfilm is pleased to announce that Academy Award-winning filmmaker Ron Howard has been named director of the untitled Han Solo film.

“At Lucasfilm, we believe the highest goal of each film is to delight, carrying forward the spirit of the saga that George Lucas began forty years ago,” said Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm. “With that in mind, we’re thrilled to announce that Ron Howard will step in to direct the untitled Han Solo film. We have a wonderful script, an incredible cast and crew, and the absolute commitment to make a great movie. Filming will resume the 10th of July.”

Howard has made some of the biggest hits and most critically-acclaimed movies of the modern era. Among his many films are Lucasfilm’s Willow, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind (winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director), The Da Vinci Code, Frost/Nixon, and Rush. He also narrated and produced the beloved comedy series Arrested Development, starred in George Lucas’ American Graffiti, and remains a TV icon for his roles in The Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days.

The untitled Han Solo film is slated for a May 25, 2018, release.

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Re: Ron Howard Named New Director of HAN SOLO

#11 Post by Monterey Jack »

So, who's going to get directorial credit? Will this be another Superman II, where Howard re-shoots enough of the money to receive sole credit?

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AndyDursin
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Re: Ron Howard Named New Director of HAN SOLO

#12 Post by AndyDursin »

It's an interesting question. One thing to remember: this isn't just reshooting -- they're not finished with the movie. It's not like ROGUE ONE where they put a completed cut together, didn't like it, and then hired someone else for reshoots. Here, they may rework some things that have been filmed, but filming isn't completed to begin with.

I did not realize Lawrence Kasdan had so much to do with this movie. He wrote the script with his son and is a producer -- Lord and Miller didn't write it, so that changes my view of this a little bit. It could be that Lord and Miller were riffing or improvising or pissing Kasdan off in addition to Kennedy -- who the hell knows. Maybe one day we'll find out. Kasdan naturally would've been the go-to guy to direct it, but DGA rules apparently prohibit that from happening, so we'll see how it shakes down.

Tony Gilroy DIDN'T get credit for directing new scenes -- lots of them -- on ROGUE ONE, but the circumstances are different here. My guess is Howard will end up being the only credited director unless there's really a substantial amount of Lord/Miller's movie left in the final cut. IMO I highly doubt Howard would've taken this unless there was lots of movie left to film and/or reshoot in the first place.

Here's the interesting part of Deadline's article on this:
The Lego Movie filmmakers dropped in a testy exit after an inability to recover from creative rifts between them and Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy and Lawrence Kasdan. He wrote the script with his son, is exec producer, and a backbone of Jedi lore as the scribe of early Star Wars films The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi.

The exit of Lord and Miller shocked Hollywood and indicated that directors are becoming as disposable in these tentpole blockbuster sequels/spinoffs as screenwriters have always felt. The whole episode is vexing to the DGA, and it will remain to be seen how the credit situation gets handled. You always hear about directors being shoved aside on problem films — World War Z among them — but it became an open secret that Tony Gilroy directed extensive re-shoots that he wrote on the Gareth Edwards-directed first Star Wars spinoff Rogue One. The credit issue wasn’t tested there; Michael Clayton helmer Gilroy was paid millions of dollars and Edwards remained the credited director on a film that turned out to be a crowd-pleasing success that crossed the billion-dollar mark in worldwide gross.

The DGA, under what is commonly known as “the Eastwood Rule,” prohibits an actor or producer from firing a director and taking over. This occurred after Clint Eastwood had a beef with director Philip Kaufman on The Outlaw Josie Wales, that not only had to do with the film’s tone, but also an actress — Sondra Locke.
This complicated the idea that Kasdan would take over, despite credits that include The Big Chill. The credit situation is a matter for another day; Disney’s priority is to get finished a film that has high stakes because of the beloved nature of the rogue Han Solo character.
http://deadline.com/2017/06/ron-howard- ... 202118193/

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Re: Ron Howard Named New Director of HAN SOLO

#13 Post by esteban miranda »

During the classic Hollywood era, especially in the 1930s and 40s, producers were often the ones in charge with directors moving from one project to another after principal photography.
Although lots of theater "filler" was produced this way, there were also a lot of entertaining films made under these circumstances...

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Re: Ron Howard Named New Director of HAN SOLO

#14 Post by AndyDursin »

The Hollywood Reporter has posted a new article that's the best one yet on this disaster:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-v ... it-1016619

Bottom line...sounds like Lord and Miller were in over their heads and deserved to go. That said Disney and Kathleen Kennedy seem to be hell bent on getting these movies cranked out without really having a plan and it's resulting in major problems on all of these films.

And the kid paying Han Solo needs a new acting coach....NOW?? Good luck with that...and see you next May! Lol

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Re: Ron Howard Named New Director of HAN SOLO

#15 Post by mkaroly »

It could very well be that all this drama will be more entertaining in hindsight than the film itself! :lol:

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