The theatrical debut of the film is only a few days away, but the topic of its director change and series of reshoots continues to garner top headlines as Variety’s latest cover story dives into these topics surrounding Solo: A Star Wars Story. Some of the details contained in their piece may be new to you depending on how closely & often you’ve been following the reports on Ron Howard taking over for initial co-directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller. Check out an excerpt and YouTube video from the in-depth article below as well as a look at their new Solo cover featuring Alden Ehrenreich, Emilia Clarke, and Howard.
A crew member who worked on the film under both Lord-Miller and Howard, but declined to be identified because he was not authorized to disclose the information, says Lord and Miller drew Kennedy’s ire for stretching days out with experimentation.
“I got a lot of overtime [under Lord and Miller], which ultimately was their downfall,” the crew member says. “The first assistant director brokers that with production. He ultimately went to the well one too many times, and Kathleen Kennedy blew up.”
The crew member also says Howard had a firmer grip on what he wanted and how he wanted to shoot it. Under Howard, one second unit sequence took up half the stage space at Pinewood Studios that it did under Lord and Miller and a fraction of the time, the crew member says.
“Howard was inseparable from [director of photography] Bradford Young,” says the crew member. “You can totally see the love affair because Howard seemed super invested in how the film looked. Lord and Miller didn’t seem too fussed with that aspect, really.”
