Only days after firing both directors from the upcoming “Star Wars” Han Solo movie, Lucasfilm has announced that Ron Howard will be the new director of the spinoff. Right in the middle of production, directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller were let go for “creative differences.” The dismissal came after over four-and-a-half months into production where the directors clashed over the direction of the film with the president of Lucasfilm Kathleen Kennedy and co-writer/executive producer Lawrence Kasdan, the legendary screenwriter behind the classics “Empire Strikes Back” and ”Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that Howard will meet with the actors Alden Ehrenreich (young Han Solo), Donald Glover (young Lando Calrissian), Emilia Clarke, Woody Harrelson, and Thandie Newton. The Han Solo spinoff was scheduled to shoot for three-and-a-half more weeks, with five weeks of reshoots built into the schedule.
Howard has won the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Director for 2002’s “A Beautiful Mind.” Howard’s directing credits include the movies “Parenthood,” “Splash,” “Backdraft,” “The Da Vinci Code,” and “Apollo 13.” Howard previously worked with Lucasfilm on 1988’s “Willow,” a fantasy flick that received two technical Ocscar nominations for visual effects and sound editing, but didn’t fare well at the box office. Howard’s most recent movies include “Inferno” and “In the Heart of the Sea,” which haven’t exactly been Hollywood blockbusters.
Howard is currently directing and narrating “Arrested Development,” which should spawn some quality Han Solo/Arrested Development memes.
Han Solo: “Tell Jabba I’ve got his money.”
Ron Howard Narrator Voice: “He didn’t.”
Some argue that Howard’s greatest project that he directed was the Funny or Die short “Heidi Montag Says No to Plastic.”
[Variety]