If Rogue One caught some unwanted attention last summer for its decision to undergo extensive reshoots – reshoots that were conducted under the supervision of Tony Gilroy, not Gareth Edwards – then Lucasfilm’s Han Solo anthology pic was thrust into the eye of a media storm after Phil Lord and Chris Miller were abruptly removed from the project back in June.
Citing the ol’ “creative differences” chestnut, subsequent reports went on to reveal that Lord and Miller’s comedic tendencies threatened to steer Solo: A Star Wars Story off the beaten track, so it came as no surprise that Lucasfilm brass turned to a seasoned Oscar-winner (read: Ron Howard) to course-correct the second Star Wars anthology film.
Fast forward to now, and after purportedly reshooting 80 percent of Solo, principal photography on Howard’s spinoff has officially wrapped in anticipation of its release on May 25th, 2018. That means the film is just five months away from hitting theaters, but aside from a cast photo, we haven’t really seen anything from it.
Granted, Lucasfilm has had the small matter of The Last Jedi to deal with, but the continued silence still feels slightly ominous given Solo‘s notoriously troubled production. Now, fueling our fears even more is a new report from Screen Geek, who tell us that a source close to the pic claims that Disney is getting ready for the spinoff to tank.
Disney is bracing themselves for the Han Solo movie to bomb. They were worried about it before all The Last Jedi controversy, but now they’re essentially writing Solo off. The lead actor, Alden Ehrenreich, can’t act, and they had a dialogue coach on hand for all of his scenes. On top of that, the script is unworkable. It’s going to be a car crash.
As is always the case with these types of reports, we’d advise taking this with a grain of salt. After all, like we said before, Rogue One was also the subject of much negative buzz and it ended up pulling through, becoming both a financial and critical success.
That being said, this is far from the first time that we’ve heard Solo: A Star Wars Story is in trouble and admittedly, it does seem to be having a bit of a tougher time than Gareth Edwards’ aforementioned spinoff did during its production. Still, Disney has given us no reason to doubt them yet. The Force Awakens was a monster success and even though The Last Jedi is splitting fans down the middle, it’s bringing in the big bucks at the box office.
As such, we’ll remain hopeful that Ron Howard will be able to pull everything together and deliver another thrilling adventure in that galaxy far, far away with Solo: A Star Wars Story.