Welcome to Development Hell, the fiery pit into which we fling recent developments in casting, distribution, and everything else that’s new and mildly interesting in the Boschian phantasmagoria of the entertainment industry.
When Ron Howard was handed the keys to the Millennium Falcon and given the task of finishing production on Solo: A Star Wars Story, actor Paul Bettany was put into a situation not many people get the chance to be in. Suddenly, a guy he knew and had worked with previously was in charge of a Star Wars movie. So,…
For fans of the franchise, it can be difficult to think about the director’s credit on Solo: A Star Wars Story without it having a little asterisk next to it. Around this time last year—and right at the tail end of principal photography—Phil Lord and Chris Miller were fired from the production and replaced by veteran…
Solo: A Star Wars Story is due out May 25, after a somewhat rocky production that saw directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller replaced by Ron Howard over creative differences with Lucasfilm, the removal of Michael K. Williams’ character, and reports that Alden Ehrenreich, the star of the spin-off, needed an on-set…
Ron Howard’s Solo: A Star Wars Story is coming out at the end of next month, with a Cannes premiere just before that, but so far we’ve only seen the one good trailer. That left us with a lot of mysteries about the project, like whether the behind-the-scenes issues will have a tangible impact, how much of the plot will…
Last June, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy announced that co-directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller were being taken off of Solo: A Star Wars Story, which, at that point, was at least three-quarters of the way done shooting. Then, as rumors of on-set disagreements and production snafus began circulating, it was…
In August, shortly after Ron Howard stepped in to take over Solo: A Star Wars Story from fired directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, a part originally played by Michael K. Williams had to be cut out when he couldn’t make room for Howard’s reshoots in his schedule. Paul Bettany was then brought in to play the same…
If the first trailer coming just a few months before the movie itself wasn’t enough of an indication of just how down-to-the-wire the production of Solo: A Star Wars Story is, Collider is reporting that director Ron Howard just brought in Jon Favreau to voice a “very cool and important” alien for the film. Howard…
George Lucas has been functionally estranged from the Star Wars universe for a few years now, ever since he sold his giant, expensive baby to Disney back in 2012. (In 2015, still clearly stinging, he referred to the deal as selling his kids “to the white slavers”; he later apologized for the comment, but it’s clear…
Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) is hardly the only handsome rake in Solo: A Star Wars Story, as evinced by Lando Calrissian’s (Donald Glover) repeat suave-as-fuck appearances in the trailers. Because the spin-off is basically an origin story, it’s also full of shady characters, including rogues played by Woody Harrelson,…
After replacement director Ron Howard spent months teasing the film on social media, Disney and Lucasfilm have finally dropped the first trailer for roguish spin-off movie Solo: A Star Wars Story. The official synopsis from back in January teased “daring escapades,” and we definitely get to see some of that from Alden…
The real trailer won’t arrive until tomorrow morning, but Disney and Lucasfilm took a break from all of the kickoffs and touchdowns at the Super Bowl for a riveting 45 seconds or so of footage from Solo: A Star Wars Story. Don’t be fooled by that short runtime, though, this was a pretty solid tease. We saw some…
Toward the end of Sunday night’s Golden Globes ceremony, Natalie Portman and Ron Howard were tasked with presenting one of the evening’s more prestigious awards: Best Director. But rather than engage in the same dry banter viewers have come to expect from awards shows, Portman decided to use her brief time onstage to…
Like any other Star Wars fan would, Ron Howard has been reacting to his gig as replacement director on Solo: A Star Wars Story by regularly posting photos on social media of neat stuff he’s doing and seeing while making the movie. His latest behind-the-scenes shot, which has to be one of the last ones we’re going to…
There are slim chances of titling a Star Wars movie in a manner that will please all or even most of its many, many fans, but just calling the Han Solo movie Solo is still pretty gobsmacking. That Han Solo’s last name directly implied his raffish, go-it-alone nature was always the type of thing you didn’t want to look…
Lest you forgot that Ron Howard has been working overtime (cheerfully and without complaint, one assumes) to finish the previously-untitled “young Han Solo movie” after previous directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller dropped out in an improv-related scuffle with producer and final authority on all things Star Wars…
Production continues apace for the young Han Solo movie, which is due out May 25, 2018. And director Ron Howard’s teases grow a bit more specific, or at least, his pictures are more in focus. After sharing a shadowy photo of himself on the set with Donald Glover as Lando Calrissian on a monitor in the background,…
Ron Howard continues to fill his inherited Han Solo movie with actors he’s worked with before, with Variety reporting that A Beautiful Mind and Da Vinci Code co-star Paul Bettany has signed on for Howard’s standalone Star Wars film.
The sudden departure of Phil Lord and Chris Miller from Disney’s standalone Han Solo film created a lot of anxiety—a disturbance that the studio has tried to quell by bringing in the sure, steady hand of Ron Howard, who’s also done his part to assure that everything’s fine. “[It’s] coming along great,” Howard told The…
Here’s one for anyone harboring a lingering nostalgia for Ron Howard’s 1988 fantasy epic Willow: Howard—apparently delighting in his ongoing role as the trickster god of the Star Wars universe—obliquely revealed today that Willow star Warwick Davis will appear in his upcoming Han Solo spin-off. Howard made the…
