When Phil Lord and Chris Miller's departure from Solo: A Star Wars Story was announced, it was done via an official Lucasfilm statement and the directors themselves remained mostly quiet. Now, the pair has finally made public comments about the intriguing situation. During a recent panel, the directing duo was asked about the situation regarding their removal from the project. While they say that everybody went into the movie with the best of intentions, it seems that the two sides simply had very different visions about what the movie would be, that ultimately could not be overcome. According to Phil Lord...
I think in terms of us leaving the project, I think everybody went in with really good intentions and our approach to making the movie was different than theirs. That was a really big gap to bridge, and it proved to be too big. Sometimes people break up, and it's really sad, and it's really disappointing, but it happens and we learned a lot from our collaborators and we're better filmmakers for it. We're really proud of the work we did on the movie and we wish everybody the best.
For the most part, this was pretty much what we understood when the original announcement was made. While not stated explicitly by Phil Lord, at the Vulture Festival, it sounds like the different approaches of Lord and Miller compared to Lucasfilm was something that was clearly understood by both sides fairly early on, if not the very beginning. The two sides attempted to bridge the gap and find common ground, but ultimately they were unable to do so. Lord and Miller don't try to point fingers, instead focusing on what they learned from the experience. Whatever they took from Solo that made them better filmmakers will hopefully mean that we're in for something special the next time they get behind the camera.
Over the summer, it was announced that Phil Lord and Chris Miller were leaving the production of the movie that came to be known as Solo: A Star Wars Story, with Ron Howard coming in to take over as director. While Lord and Miller may now say that they simply had a different approach to the project, that approach was ultimately too far off the mark for Lucasfilm. Director's leave film projects all the time, even under less than ideal circumstances, but rarely does it happen in the middle of filming as it was here.
While the change in directors delayed the film, it's still scheduled for release this coming May. Alden Ehrenreich takes on the role made famous by Harrison Ford in a story set prior to the original Star Wars trilogy.
