Regardless of how well they may turn out, making a movie is never a smooth process, especially when changes at the top of a major franchise such as Star Wars make it to the public. That's exactly what is happening with the Han Solo movie as last week, the film's directors, Phil Lord and Chris Miller left the movie due to creative differences. The Hollywood Reporter has been gathering more details on what has been going on, but first and foremost, it should probably be stated that Lord and Miller didn't leave the movie, so much as they were removed from their roles by Lucasfilm Boss Kathleen Kennedy.
Granted, it was all coming to a head anyway, but as THR reports, it was Kennedy who "finally pulled the trigger."
Two more significant details from behind the scenes have come out as well. The film's Editor, Chris Dickens (Macbeth) was replaced by Pietro Scalia (Alien: Covenant, The Martian) and leading man, Alden Ehrenreich who plays Solo in the film, had an Acting Coach hired for him. The notion of an acting coach is not the thing that's surprising, as it is actually quite common, it's the fact, as THR points out, that the Coach was hired so late into production. These things actually happened while Lord and Miller were still the directors, but suggested someone they had already worked with, writer-director Maggie Kiley (21 Jump Street).
The schism ultimately appears to come down to LucasFilm and the Directors. Kennedy and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan apparently became frustrated by how slow the film was progressing with the latter also being unhappy with how often Lord and Miller would encourage the actors to go off-script. Coming off of smaller films, Lord and Miller were used to a more improvisational style of directing which didn't match the more organized structure that LucasFilm wanted.
As a result, Lord and Miller felt that they had "zero creative freedom" and neither side was entirely willing to give into the other.
Now here we are with yet another Star Wars film with some very public behind-the-scenes imperfections. That said, what's going on right now is no reason to go into panic mode. Making movies is a tough business, and it involves managing a lot of big personalities, and sometimes things just don't work out. The only thing that matters is that in the end, the Han Solo film is worth the wait.
Source: [The Hollywood Reporter]
