"Either shut him up or shut him down!"

Film You will have heard that Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have creative differenced their way out of the Han Solo film with three weeks of principle photography left. As ever their fans have suggested this is all a Disney/Lucasfilm problem but I'm taking rather an Ant-Man approach to this, that Edgar Wright's directorial style was never going to fit within the MCU as it is now.

As the Hollywood Reporter suggests Lord and Miller across all of their films have favoured an improvisational approach, and however much I like their work, I thought it was an odd choice that they be hired in the first place especially with Lawrence Kasdan writing the script. Why get Kasdan to do the work if you're going to allow the actors to throw it all out or talk around what's on the page?

Plus it doesn't fit with Star Wars, with its high adherence to a "canon" and in defining the back story for one of its iconic characters.  However far away from the house style Rogue One strayed, it was still quite recognisably a Star Wars film, especially after the reshoots and we don't really know the extent to which what happened was due to Gareth Edwards straying from formula.

Perhaps they thought Lord and Miller would like the Russo Brothers in MARVEL take whatever their sensibilities they have but remain focused on it being a Star Wars film rather than something of their own.  But it sounds like they wanted to do a 21 Jump Street and bend someone else's property around their own ideas, which again, I don't think you can do with Han Solo.

We'll probably have some inkling eventually of what occurred, especially in the run up to the release of the film.  The interesting thing will be how much is going to be reshot with the new director and who will eventually get the credit.  Will it be a joint credit or will the new person receive final name?  There's no way Lucasfilm would release this with the modern equivalent of Alan Smithee.  Probably.

Updated 22/06/2017  Ron Howard's taken over, which is reassuring.  Here's my guess.  Massive, massive reshoots and the film is pushed through to a December 2018 release and he'll get sole credit.  No idea why its being released as a Summer film anyway.  Star Wars is the perfect replacement for Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter as the end of the year treat.  Slash film has some unverified accounts of what happened behind the scenes and it sounds like they weren't delivering the Star Wars film as expected.