In your excitement over the upcoming Star Wars film – in which Donald Glover plays Lando Calrissian but which is inexplicably named after Han Solo’s character and is about him or something – you may have forgotten that there was a whole bunch of on-set drama last year.
Solo was about three-quarters of the way through principal photography when directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller were fired by the studio, because the Lucasfilm top brass wasn’t happy with how it was progressing – or they lost the movie fair and square to Ron Howard in a game of sabacc. It was definitely one of those two.
“Creative differences”, also.
Lord and Miller are best known for directing 21 Jump Street and The Lego Movie and turning both into surprisingly excellent movies that also perform well commercially, and should be better know for creating Clone High, one of the most underrated not-really-for-kids cartoons of all time.
But a cast member from the film – who chose to remain anonymous – told Vulture that the pair were out of their depth.
“[Lord and Miller] seemed a bit out of control,” the source told the site. “They definitely felt the pressure; with one of these movies, there are so many people on top of you all the time. The first assistant director was really experienced and had to step in to help them direct a lot of scenes. … When [Howard] came on, he took control and you could feel it.”
The source isn’t bitching – it comes off as a simple statement of fact. Lord and Miller, who also worked a lot on Community, wanted to do take after take in a looser, more improvisational style, and piece it together in the edit, whereas Howard would do just a couple and move on.
Shocker: a more experienced director made for a more efficient shoot and better morale on set, as well as less nervous studio executives.
Also, Ron Howard knows how to make a good space movie, and can fill in any gaps in the supposedly “unworkable” script by just explaining any less-than-clear subtext in a wry voiceover.
And it was also reported at the time that concerningly late in the game, an acting coach was brought on board to work with Alden Ehrenreich, who’s playing the young Han. Ouch.
But Vulture’s source says this was more to do with the fact that Lucasfilm basically want a baby-faced Harrison Ford impersonator, not an actor with his own take on the character, and that it did actually help: “You could see his acting became more relaxed. He became more Harrison-like.”
There is no mention of any other cast member needing help, so we can continue assuming that Donald Glover’s Billy Dee Williams impression is – like everything else he does – flawless.
