Having been unceremoniously fired from the project with just weeks of principal photography remaining – and Ron Howard coming in to reshoot around 70% of the final film – the Phil Lord and Chris Miller version of Solo: A Star Wars Story is going to go down as one of Hollywood’s big ‘What If?’ stories.
Despite being replaced by Howard, over a quarter of the finished film consists of material shot by Lord and Miller, and if rumours are to be believed it seems that Lucasfilm did actually use their footage to create a trailer prior to the duo’s exit, which was intended to be shown to fans at Star Wars Celebration last April.
“Lucasfilm had created a Solo trailer to show at Star Wars Celebration, assembled from the footage from Lord and Miller’s shoot,” claims Screen Crush. “They just chose not to screen it. According to my source, the trailer was cut together and then shelved for exactly the same reasons that Lord and Miller were let go two months later; Lucasfilm wasn’t happy with it.”
To the Lord and Miller fans out there – it’s probably not wise to get too excited over the news, as even if the report is true, one would have to assume the trailer is securely locked away in the Lucasfilm vaults next to The Star Wars Holiday Special, never to see the light of day.
A new adventure with the most beloved scoundrel in the galaxy. Through a series of daring escapades deep within a dark and dangerous criminal underworld, Han Solo meets his mighty future copilot Chewbacca and encounters the notorious gambler Lando Calrissian, in a journey that will set the course of one of the Star Wars saga’s most unlikely heroes.
Solo: A Star Wars Story features Alden Ehrenreich (Hail, Caesar!) as the famous smuggler, Donald Glover (Atlanta) as Lando Calrissian, Woody Harrelson (War for the Planet of the Apes) as Tobias Beckett, Joonas Suotamo as Chewbacca, Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag) as L3-37, Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones) as Qi’Ra, Thandie Newton (Westworld) as Val, Ian Kenny (Sing Street) as Rebolt, Harley Durst (Wonder Woman) as Moloch, Jon Favreau (Spider-Man: Homecoming) as Rio Durant, Paul Bettany (Avengers: Infinity War) as Dryden Vos and Warwick Davis (Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi) as Weazel.