Board 8 > A ton of new details on the Lord/Miller firing for that Han Solo movie

(+) Yeah! (+)

This is one impressive trainwreck.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/star-wars-han-solo-movie-firing-new-details-behind-phil-lord-chris-miller-exit-1016619

Matters had already reached a boiling point in mid-June when Phil Lord and Chris Miller, co-directors of the still-untitled young Han Solo movie, were in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon but didn’t start shooting until 1 p.m. That day the two used only three different setups — that is, three variations on camera placement — as opposed to the 12 to 15 that Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy had expected, according to sources with knowledge of the situation. Not only was the going slow, but the few angles that had been shot did not provide a wealth of options to use in editing the movie.

This was hardly the first time Kennedy was unhappy with how the film was progressing. And as he looked at dailies from his home in Los Angeles, Lawrence Kasdan — screenwriter, executive producer and keeper of the Stars Wars flame — also was said to be displeased.

Shortly after the shoot in the Millennium Falcon, on June 20, the world learned that Kennedy — with the backing of Disney studio chief Alan Horn — had taken the extraordinary step of firing Lord and Miller. Obviously, Kennedy knew this would set off a storm of publicity that no one wants or needs in any movie — especially one in the Star Wars universe, where every move is closely watched by a gigantic audience with a sense of ownership. It's rare and undesirable enough to fire any director. Firing established players like Lord and Miller, who have a fan base ready to give them the benefit of any doubt? That shocked Hollywood's most seasoned veterans.

When Kennedy felt that these measures did not get the production on track, she asked Kasdan to come to London. Kasdan is said also to have been unhappy with the limited shots and displeased that Lord and Miller were calling out lines for the actors to try from behind the monitor rather than sticking with the script that he had written in collaboration with his son. (Lord and Miller had input on the script before shooting began.) “As a writer, producer and part of Star Wars world, you get on a plane when that happens,” says a person with knowledge of the situation.

But Lord and Miller were not prepared to have Kasdan become a shadow director. With an impasse reached, Kennedy finally pulled the trigger. The next day, when the crew was told that Ron Howard would take over as director, sources say they broke into applause.

There are some in the industry who see an emerging pattern suggesting that Kennedy’s appetite for creative license and risk-taking will have to be curbed. Josh Trank was dismissed from the second Star Wars stand-alone film before he even started based on problems with Fantastic Four; Edwards, who conceived of Rogue One as a dark war film, was shunted aside; and now this. For all the talk of hiring filmmakers with their own vision, observers say Kennedy and Disney may be learning that the franchise is defined by a particular set of parameters. “All of the films have been 'troubled,'" says a top executive at a rival studio. “J.J. [Abrams] was powerful enough to push back on an unrealistic start date [for the first movie] but that was a tug of war. The last one was reshot by Tony [Gilroy] for months and now this? This is a systemic problem.”

But an insider argues that Rian Johnson (Looper) shot Star Wars: The Last Jedi, set for release in December, seamlessly, proving that the right director can execute without major interference from Lucasfilm. The search for new and interesting filmmakers will continue and for many, perhaps, the siren call of Star Wars will be impossible to resist.

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R1 should have been more of a war movie. The first half is atrocious, Scarif is where it finally feels like they knew what they were doing.
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It's hard to say whether this was justified or not. It sounds like there were problems that weren't going to be solved easily, but I wonder how bad of an idea going off-script and focusing on improvisation was. It's a Han Solo movie, weren't the best lines from him in the original trilogy improvised?
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-FFDragon- posted...

R1 should have been more of a war movie. The first half is atrocious, Scarif is where it finally feels like they knew what they were doing.

I mean, they need a setup to explain how and why those people were on Scarif in the first place.
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redrocket_pub posted...

-FFDragon- posted...

R1 should have been more of a war movie. The first half is atrocious, Scarif is where it finally feels like they knew what they were doing.

I mean, they need a setup to explain how and why those people were on Scarif in the first place.

Naaaaah. They start R1 at Scarif, then do a R1 prequel to explain how they got there
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Just make the movie 120 minutes of Darth Vader slaughtering people in a hallway.
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The movie gets better when the shootout happens on Jedha. It becomes genuinely decent on the rainy planet. I disagree with the popular opinion that it only turned around on Scarif.

The first act is a mess though.
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The movie gets better when K-2SO shows up.
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I loved Rogue One the whole way through.


Here's the thing people get up in arms about with studio interference - I think it sucks when it's just a bunch of corporate dudes pushing generic safe movie tropes on a movie and limiting the director.

But when a director signs on a movie in an anthology series like the MCU or these Star Wars, they aren't the the absolute master of the movie like they should be in most movies. In these cases, the "corporate overseers" aren't just annoying executives meddling in the movie. They are creatives directly in charge of shaping the overall narrative of the series. They SHOULD be involved in the movies, it's a good thing. and when a director can't work with them on the project properly, is not the right project for them. I dont really see it as that awful of a thing when these creative differences happen.
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I heard that one of the first to raise concerns about the directors was the guy who plays Han Solo. Specifically they wanted him to do it as a more comedic role, "like Ace Ventura".

Now I'm not saying that's the right choice for Han Solo. But when you hire the guys whose film directing credits consist of 21 Jump Street, 22 Jump Street, The Lego Movie, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and nothing else, I guess I'm not sure what you thought was going to happen.
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i hope that this doesn't wind up arresting the development of the movie
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Just read this information elsewhere and it kind of blows my mind that Lucasfilm ever thought these two guys would work well with the general Lucasfilm ideology. Of course, this is the company that already is playing hot potato with directors elsewhere. Still, did they just not do any research at all for the people they were hiring?
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MrGreenonion posted...

I heard that one of the first to raise concerns about the directors was the guy who plays Han Solo. Specifically they wanted him to do it as a more comedic role, "like Ace Ventura".

Now I'm not saying that's the right choice for Han Solo. But when you hire the guys whose film directing credits consist of 21 Jump Street, 22 Jump Street, The Lego Movie, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and nothing else, I guess I'm not sure what you thought was going to happen.

Its worth noting that prior to those movies these two were the brain trust that helped Bill Lawrence with Scrubs and Clone High too and then also How I met your mother.

Screwball self referential humor is their thing and they're very good at it. Asking them to put together an epic Han Solo movie is just...i mean dumb. They're not Joss Whedon they dont do peppered in humor.
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I think with stuff like the Lego Movie and the Brooklyn 99 pilot, these guys absolutely had the potential to make good lighthearted Han Solo movie with a strong emotional core tying it all together. I don't think their history shows them unable to do this.

If they legit came into this trying to do 23 jump street that's just a failure on their part to step up and grow.
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How can they say they're looking for creative and interesting directors with a straight face
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