Among fans disappointed by Star Wars, there is often the same, morbid question: where did it all go wrong? It’s easy to say things went downhill when Disney bought the franchise rights from George Lucas, or maybe even further, like when Lucas released one subpar prequel after another.
None of those things was the cause. There was still hope. Star Wars only truly became doomed (as C3PO might say) after Disney fired Phil Lord and Christopher Miller from directing Solo: A Star Wars Story.
Solo Was Supposed To Be A Different Movie
When Lord and Miller were announced as directors, it raised more than a few Star Wars fans’ eyebrows. That’s because the pair were primarily known as the witty geniuses behind animated films such as Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and The Lego Movie. Since we’d never had a Star Wars movie explicitly designed as a comedy, it was a surprise when Disney hired these two funny guys to bring Han Solo’s origin story to life.
Lord and Miller’s Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs.
Eventually, the most predictable thing ever happened: Disney fired Lord and Miller over “creative differences” they had with others on the project, including legendary The Empire Strikes Back director Lawrence Kasdan. He had written an appropriately serious script for Solo: A Star Wars Story and reportedly didn’t like the funny and improvisational direction these two directors were taking the movie. Lord and Miller were replaced by Ron Howard, who was seen as a safe director to finish production of Han’s first “solo” cinematic outing.
Solo Bombs While Lord And Miller Become Game Changers
While I don’t have the Force, I do have the power of hindsight, and it’s easy to see Disney’s unsurprising decision as one that effectively doomed the Star Wars franchise. Solo, despite being a fairly solid movie, ended up bombing (at least, relative to its bloated budget) at the box office. Meanwhile, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller went on to write and produce the Spider-Verse movies, making a small fortune (both in money and cultural collateral) for Sony.
Chewbacca and Alden Ehrenreich as Han Solo in Solo: A Star Wars Story.
Sony’s superhero movies mostly have a negative reputation thanks to the awful quality of films like Morbius, Kraven, and Madame Web. But the Spider-Verse movies have been a major hit, and fans are counting down the minutes until we get to see the third film in Miles Morales’ epic animated trilogy. To me, this proves one thing: Lord and Miller had the chance to turn Star Wars around after backlash against The Last Jedi, and Disney firing the duo effectively doomed the studio’s most beloved franchise.
Solo Could Have Turned It All Around
It’s generally accepted that one of the reasons Solo: A Star Wars Story failed is that many fans were still annoyed by The Last Jedi, which made major changes to Luke Skywalker’s character that even Mark Hamill hated. That controversial sequel had come out only five months earlier and left a bad taste in fans’ mouths, souring the Solo box office. Given how successful Lord and Miller were at getting fans to show up for the Spider-Verse movies after Sony squandered its superhero street cred, I can’t help but think their version of Solo could have brought disgruntled Star Wars fans back to the movie theater.
Donald Glover as Lando in Solo: A Star Wars Story.
Solo failed in part because, after The Last Jedi, many fans worried that Star Wars had lost its old magic. With Lord and Miller’s help, Disney could have released a funny Star Wars film that engaged sci-fi fans as much as Into the Spider-Verse engaged superhero fans. If the comedic duo’s Solo had been successful and had great word-of-mouth buzz, Disney would likely have continued making the other character-centric films they had been planning (like Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi movies) rather than later turning them into disappointing Disney+ series.
Solo Was The End Of Star Wars… Unless
The failure of Solo was the beginning of the end: it showed that Star Wars could fail at the box office, proved how many fans were hating the sequels, and exiled many exciting film projects to the streaming hell of Disney+. Disney had a chance to let two of Hollywood’s most reliable creators make a fresh and innovative film, the kind that the franchise had never seen before. Instead, Disney fired the two, and they went on to provide Sony with the Spider-Verse movies that became critical and commercial hits.
The Falcon attempts to avoid being swallowed in Solo: A Star Wars Story.
Disney fired its most revolutionary creators when Star Wars most needed to change things up. We haven’t had a new film in the franchise since 2019, so it’s fair to say that Disney was wrong to play it safe with Solo: A Star Wars Story and other franchise films. Unless they’re willing to embrace their inner Han Solo and take bigger creative risks going forward, this franchise might disappear into a black hole of complete and utter fan disinterest.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
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