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VARIETY – The hackneyed industry catchphrase “creative differences” has been enlisted countless times over the decades to describe Hollywood productions gone amok, prompting a change in the director’s chair. The modern “Star Wars” series has not been immune: More than half of Lucasfilm’s recent efforts have suffered through episodes of filmmaker upheaval.
But the latest installment, “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” due out May 25, upstaged them all when the production veered off the rails so spectacularly that it forced filming to grind to a halt after four months. With mere weeks left on the shooting schedule, producer Kathleen Kennedy fired directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and hired veteran Ron Howard to right the ship.
Suddenly, the Oscar-winning director of 2001’s “A Beautiful Mind,” who along with his Imagine Entertainment partner Brian Grazer has overseen dozens of features, was tasked with the daunting job of overhauling the embattled franchise spinoff. Howard shot about 70% of “Solo,” thus earning him sole director credit on the movie, with Lord and Miller receiving executive producer acknowledgments. With the reshoots, the movie wound up costing more than $250 million.
“I didn’t witness any of the difficulties or where that disconnect was,” says Howard, who is 64. “But the one thing that I could bring to it was objectivity. I saw it as an opportunity.”
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