A/V SOLO: A Star Wars Story (untagged spoilers allowed)

Here’s what seems to be a fact: Lord & Miller wanted something, Kasdan/Kennedy wanted something else, they were unable to reach a compromise.

Here’s what I believe: directing is a tough business – it’s always, ALWAYS tougher on directors than on screenwriters or producers or corporation managers. Because regardless of the script, if you are unable to make a solid, entertaining movie, you get most of the blame. If the script sucks, it’s still the director’s fault. (Unless it’s Star Wars, then it's always Lucas' fault).

But for new-ish, upcoming directors still trying to establish a career, it’s an even more of a double-edged sword to get a job in huge franchises, with their vocal and obsessive fandoms, the scrutinizing critics and the corporation control. This is the last situation where I would expect a barely-known director to pull a Diva on others. They surely don’t want to mess up or lose that job - I would think. If they really, truly, did not want to do whatever was on Kasdan’s scripts, I'm assuming that was likely because, in their view, it truly did not work on screen – or they were unable to find a way to convey that well on screen – and having their name attached to something they thought it didn’t work was apparently more concerning to them than losing that job.

But anyway, I don’t want to imply that the directors are right and Kasdan is wrong. I don’t have much confidence in Kasdan – I don’t think he has written anything good since mid-80s and I’m not a fan of his moronic, character-regressive, “Look At Me I’m So Badass & Cynical and nothing else” Han Solo in TFA. But it’s also possible that script contained situations that Lord & Miller were not competent or experienced enough to bring that to screen. It’s possible that the script had Serious Drama moments and all the directors could do was just another Lego movie.

So who knows what happened. But it’s still a little weird that they were hired in the first place KK apparently expected something else from them. It also makes me curious to what the heck KK expects from Trevorrow, since everything he directed so far was “passable” at best, and the only thing he single-handily wrote so far was… well, this masterpiece.

 

It is still a year away from their announced release date and if they needed to they could push it back to December without too many problems. They have plenty of time to work out the problems they feel they have with the film. The trouble with R1 came out about this same time last year and they only had six months to figure it out and that turned out just fine.

 

Depends on the surrounding circumstances, but the directors being fired at this stage in the game seems the worst part by far of this whole affair.

What directors will approaching or answer Lucasfilm and Disney after this snafu?

 

Everyone talking about how "slapstick" or whatever Lord and Miller are and that's why they got fired... on the one hand, I trust their comedic backgrounds more than I do Kathleen Kennedy or Lawrence Kasdan, plus it doesn't really fit with the acting styles of Alden Ehrenreich and Donald Glover. But beyond that... it's not like Kennedy didn't know L&M's backlog of work until just now. They were presumably hired because of, and not despite of, the work they've done before. Filming is like 90% done. If it took until now for Kennedy to suddenly discover L&M's comedy style, that is kind of hard to accept.

You're a bit backward on TFA here - it only got a December release date as a result of how long its development took. Reading between the lines it seems clear that Abrams would have liked longer, but Disney was adamant it come out in 2015. Personally I feel like this is a case where sticking to release dates set in stone years before movies actually start filming isn't necessarily a good thing for the final project.

Well, Kennedy is also the woman who claimed that there is no Hollywood woman director capable of doing a large-scale movie, so I'm assuming any sense of feminism she has is overshadowed by the fact she saw the revenues for Jurassic World and decided that Treverrow could do whatever he wanted as long as he made her that kind of money.

 

Kathy really said this?? (Yikes, apparently: http://www.slashfilm.com/star-wars-female-directors-kathleen-kennedy/ ). As a male film fan who likes to see more representation for females and others in the film business, I'm just really shocked she said this. I just enjoyed 'Wonder Woman' a few weeks ago, and Ms. Jenkins really kicked the DC movie-verse into high gear (especially since I had mixed feelings about MoS, BvS, and SS).

Not knocking Trevorrow but if the Disney pick of directing is just grab the director of whichever film made the most money at the time of decision making (which just happened to be Jurassic World apparently at decision time for Ep. 9)--well, I don't think that's the way to go. You go with the filmmaking style that works best.

 

Remove this from the movie-making business, and it's not nearly as sordid. Boss: "I don't like the direction this is going." Employee: "Well, I do." Boss: "Well, I'm the boss." New employee: "Whatever you say, boss."

 

A couple points: Lord and Miller are pretty well established already. They've had three big hits. They've shown they know what they're doing. They don't really fit Kennedy's pattern of directors who did one genre indie that made a good impression, used that to get a beginner blockbuster, and then got a Star Wars movie off that (that's the career pattern of Edwards, Trevorrow, and Trank).

As for style, Lord and Miller have shown flexibility. The LEGO Movie is as family-friendly as their Jump Street movies are raunchy. Both have shown a talent for extremely meta satirization of their material. I don't think there's really any reason to suspect this was going to some dumb-funny slapstick movie with Alden Ehrenreich doing Channing Tatum's doofus routine or something. If anything, my concern would be more that it would lean toward irreverent, self-aware smartass comedy, and end up feeling more like a jokey Marvel movie than Star Wars (TFA was already a mediocre Marvel movie instead of a SW movie).

But the thing is that even if that's the case, even if Kennedy was absolutely right and she's going to save us from a tonally off Marvel goofball thing and give us a magnificent Joe Johnston-directed masterpiece that feels exactly like Star Wars . . . she's still going to have messed up royally. Because her job is to hire the right director the first time. Her job is to figure out if the director's process is going to be the right fit before they're months into production. Her job is to ask these questions beforehand. It's to know the vision of the people she's hiring to handle her multimillion dollar production before she hands them the keys, and to know it's compatible with hers. If she didn't know whom she was hiring, she failed at her job. If she knew whom she was hiring, knew they didn't align with her vision and style, and then hired them anyway because she liked the splash of having their names associated with the project and thought they were little enough to force or micromanage into doing things her way anyway, she failed at her job. She could be absolutely right about the results, but the thing is she still put herself in this situation and it makes her look bad no matter what.

 

If the movie turns out to be as good as Rogue One, no one will care that they changed directors late in the game.

 

To take that rather obvious statement and invert it: If the movie turns out not to be as good as Rogue One, many will care that they changed directors late in the game.

 

Fantastic 4?

But Rogue one isn't that good. We'll actually never know what the alternate cut is.

 

If this pushes the release back to December I will be happy. December is so much better.

 

aren't there going to be 2 disney sw films and a major competiton form dc or marvel in december?

 

Yeah, that's the thing with release dates. Disney has to juggle stuff from Lucasfilm, Marvel, Pixar, and Disney proper so they not only don't compete with each other, but also all release at times where they won't be threatened by other major releases from studios. It's a big shell game. Rescheduling release dates is pretty hard in that context, especially this close (relatively) to release.

On a different note, I'm assuming the Han Solo film is going to join TFA in "movies we will never get the Making Of book about."

 

Say what?

 

We might get a making of for Episode 8. That seems to have gone smoothly.

Everything else? Hell no, it's bad enough any of this information got out as is.

 

I trust the new york times and wall street journal critics.
overall critic 6.5 on metacritic. 7.5 only by fans.

 

IMHO, Rogue One was a fantastic movie. I'll be very excited if the rest of the standalone movies meet or exceed that level.

 

RUMORS INDICATE THAT ‘HAN SOLO’ EXTRAS HAVE BEEN RELEASED BUT PRODUCTION CONTINUES!


Following the shocking news last night that Lucasfilm and directing duo Phil Lord and Chris Miller have parted ways due to cited “creative differences” on the upcoming Star Wars Story, it now looks like production could be delayed until July despite being several weeks from completion, at least for the movie’s extras.
An email from a casting agency for extras has allegedly leaked on Reddit confirming a number of details with the new shoot. The email can be seen in full below:

Hi​

Following last night’s late release on RED CUP, we have been in discussion with Production to find out the situation with your remaining booked dates.​

Unfortunately, the releases this week have been the result of a large schedule upheaval. All the dates you have previously been booked for, have now been cancelled and you are hereby released from them.​

We can only apologise for this huge change, as we know it will impact all of you in different ways. It is a decision that has been made by Production, we at Key Casting have aimed to do our best by our artists by informing you ASAP.​

Production have now stated that your scenes are due to be resumed MONDAY 10TH JULY, AND WILL SHOOT FOR THREE WEEKS.​

We have been asked to block book you from Mon 10 – Sun 30 July, including weekends. The team have stated that some of these days will be dropped but at this point they would love you to be free for as much of this time as possible.​

We are aware some of you will not be able to commit to all dates in this time period, or may have holidays booked. That is absolutely fine. Again, Production would love you to be as fully available as possible for these new dates, but they will understand if that’s not the case.​

You should please now follow the respond link below to let us know if you are available for rescheduled filming Mon 10 – Sun 30 July, and warn us of any unavailable dates so we can inform Production.​

For those struggling to understand the way this message has been worded – it basically implies that Key Casting, an agency known to cast Background Artists (also known as “Extras”) in large films such as Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, has informed some of the cast that due to the directorial change announced last night, that the dates of production have been delayed. Shooting will now commence on Monday the 10th of July and will finish three weeks later on Sunday the 30th.

However, contradictory to this report, we also have a source that says production is still underway. This additional piece of news could imply a number of things. First, that the initial report mentioned above is false, or that the second unit team is still working. Also our friends from LaFosaDelRancor had heard the same from a source of their own – production is still underway. It is very possible that actually both stories here are correct. While we have no doubts now that production is still going on, it’s possible that the extras have been released until July, while they film with the main players, who are unlikely to be released. There has still been no official word from Lucasfilm since announcing the departure of Lord and Miller.

This gap of almost three weeks could be for Lucasfilm to find a replacement, or if they already have one, it could be to plan a way to salvage what they seem to think is a problematic film. Firing the director(s) this late into production is practically unheard of and is incredibly drastic, but clearly, the multi-billion dollar franchise near and dear to all of our hearts is important to the folks at Lucasfilm – otherwise, they wouldn’t have taken a risk quite like this.

It is currently unclear whether this delay means the reshoots will also be delayed and therefore shift the whole post-production process back significantly – meaning if they can’t find a release by May 2018 and if the weeks after this don’t seem appropriate (if perhaps another tentpole is scheduled for release) then it could mean the still untitled Star Wars Story could see the same December release date that has now become expected since the Disney acquisition.
https://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2017/06/rumors-indicate-that-han-solo-extras-have-been-released-but-production-continues.html

 

Who is going to get Director's Credit? Off to the DGA for arbitration! In the future. Be awesome if it turned out that Lord and Miller revive the old "Alan Smithie" fake "I don't want my name on this" director name

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/han-solo-firing-what-happens-star-wars-movie-1015658

 

oh man an Alan Smithie Star Wars movie!

what a time to be alive

 

I think that the new director needs to reshoot 50% of the movie, for he brings the credit, this happens in Superman II.

 

I was really looking forward to the Han Solo movie from Principal Scudworth and Mr. Butlertron. I wanted a "fun" movie and I figured they'd deliver. Now I don't know what to expect from this.
I want this movie to be successful because I think that's the best chance we have for getting a Lando movie. I want my Lando movie.

Sent from my SM-G386W using Tapatalk

 

That article also mentions there's DGA rules in place that a producer can't come in and bounce a director and start directing the movie themselves, which means Kasadan can't happen.

In the ole Lucasfilm George days, he wasn't a part of any guild, they're giant independent films, so he could do whatever he wanted.

I wanted a Mister Bultertron background gag SO BAD! That's the thing I would miss the most. Just Bultertron as a droid going "Wesleyyyyy".

 

Indeed, although they still need to be recognisable as Star Wars films. Perhaps L&M were creating something that strayed too far, or perhaps wasn't of a style in keeping with Han's character. As others have pointed out elsewhere, although it's a "we can be different" Anthology film, it's also centred around a pre-existing character who's already been very well-defined, so actually the leeway to do something different might be smaller than one might think. To "get" Han's character would be to place him in a particular context -- the Brian Daley adventures, for example, or the Western/heist mix Kennedy has cited previously. Having L&M do their freeform thing might not be the best way of portraying that character, especially as the fandom as a whole seems down on the recast, so hopefully Kennedy's ensuring they're doing right by the character.

 

More dishing! From slashfilm. That lines up with what we've been hearing but a bit more detail, which is why they were fired so late: the way they were shooting the film didn't quite work with how one should make a Star Wars movie (kind of like how Edwards did it but not much made the film) and once Kennedy strung together the footage the tone's veered wildly they thought they had to go back but Lord and Miller said nope. (Personally, I think one of Star Wars' defining traits is that it CAN do insane mash up and tone shifts inside of a single film but maybe it was too extreme from Kennedy)

http://www.slashfilm.com/why-lucasfilm-fired-han-solo-directors/

Months ago, I heard there was trouble in paradise. Kathleen Kennedy and the Han Solo directors were clashing over many aspects of production.
Kennedy is a veteran producer who worked with Steven Spielberg for years and is used to collaborating with filmmakers who operate in a structured way. This is one of the many reasons things didn’t go well with Gareth Edwards on Rogue One. For example, Edwards wanted to capture the intensity of the moment, throwing himself into the middle of the action and having the chaos of the scene happen around him. But Edwards was also willing to play ball and was more structured in his planning; he would give himself time to explore a scene after the production got what they needed for a sequence. He planned to edit these moments into the film, but many of these takes never made the final cut.

Phil Lord and Chris Miller come from a strong comedy background and are used to finding the comedy and tone of a scene on the set. Their films have never had perfect scripts, instead requiring quite a bit of improvisation and room for the actors to play. From what I’ve heard, the filmmakers clashed over the process since the earliest days of the production, but Kennedy gave the duo some room to work with their process and hoped for the best. But as the first weeks of production went on, Kennedy and producer Allison Shearmur started to push Lord and Miller towards a more traditional production approach.

....

The production went on a hiatus, in part to review footage that had been shot. From what my sources tell me, Kennedy went to the editing room with Academy Award-winning editor Chris Dickens to see what the footage looked like when it was edited together. The filmmaking duo had filmed so many different choices that it was apparently unclear from dailies it would work or feel tonally consistent. Kennedy was not entirely happy with what she was seeing in the editing room – she didn’t think the footage felt like a Star Wars movie.

The Lucasfilm head showed some of the edited scenes to other executives, and Han Solo screenwriter/producer Lawrence Kasdan, whose other credits include The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and he echoed Kennedy’s concerns. Lord and Miller apparently clashed with Kasdan, questioning “many of the pair’s directing choices.” One insider said the creative differences were due to the feeling that Lord and Miller did not understand the character of Han Solo, treating him as comedic rather than sarcastic and selfish. Lord and Miller are lifelong Star Wars fans, so I find that hard to believe. If anything, I can believe that they treated the tone of the movie as more of a comedy than Lucasfilm and Disney had anticipated.