Ron Howard Is Taking Over As Director Of The Han Solo Movie
On Tuesday, it was announced that Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the directors of the stand-alone Han Solo movie (starring Alden Ehrenreich as Young Han and Donald Glover as Young Lando Calrissian), left three and a half weeks before production was scheduled to finish. There were also five weeks of reshoots scheduled. Today, Disney announced that Ron Howard will get into the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon and take it from there.
The Hollywood Reporter says that the president of Lucasfilm released a statement confirming that Ron will replace Lord and Miller.
“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. 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.”
THR says that Ron is a safe choice who will fix the messiness left by Lord and Miller. Not long after the news broke that Lord and Miller were out, sources claimed they were actually fired for not getting along with father-son screenwriters Lawrence (who wrote Empire Strikes Back) and Jon Kasdan. Lord and Miller wanted a funnier, more improvised shoot, while the Kasdans wanted to stick to the script. Lucasfilm picked a side, and Lord and Miller were dumped. Filming was put on hiatus while they looked for a replacement. Now that Ron has signed on, fillming will resume on July 10.
Ron Howard has worked with George Lucas many times before, and revealed on a podcast back in 2015 that George had approached him to direct The Phantom Menace. So this kind of makes sense. And normally I wouldn’t care that much, but this news pleases me, if only because it means there’s a very very good chance Ron Howard will put his awesomely weird-looking brother Clint Howard somewhere in it. That guy was born to appear in the Star Wars universe.
Pic: Disney