According to a
new Entertainment Weekly report, said differences won’t surprise anyone familiar with the pair’s comedic oeuvre of work and penchant for encouraging improvisation. Several sources with knowledge of the production, which began in February, claim Lord and Miller “began steering the Han Solo movie more into the genre of laughs than space fantasy” as soon as filming started. While another source told
EW the pair’s focus on comedy wasn’t
the primary issue of concern, the
general “consensus” nonetheless suggested these deviations from the script co-written by Lawrence Kasdan and his son Jon troubled Lucasfilm.
“They thought they were brought on to make a Phil and Chris movie,” a confidant of the fired directors
told EW. “Sometimes they just thought the actors could do it differently” than what the Kasdans had written. Needless to say, the report indicates Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and Lawrence Kasdan saw the Han Solo spin-off going a different direction from Lord and Miller’s comedically playful dailies, so the two were let go and replaced with Howard.