tanman

That's true but Solo was a huge disappointment and an even bigger flop than the BO shows because they had to basically film the whole thing twice. That's squarely on her for letting development go on for so long. The release date is on Disney. But that's a good point about them wanting to do a Star Wars movie every year. That's the problem with a mandate like that. I guess we'll never know what the true reason for Solo having such a disappointing BO is. Probably multiple reasons. Either way our questions will all be answered soon. I'm extremely curious what the BO will be for TRS (TRoS?)

tanman

Honestly I think it still was there even during the prequels. Of course this is all just personal opinion. The problems with the prequels were more mechanical in a way, more to do with them being terribly written and acted. But it still left the world of Star Wars intact. I think it really helped that they were prequels so it was easier to separate them from the OT. And I agree about TFA and Rogue One bringing some of that old magic back all for it to get thrown out by TLJ. Of course this is all just my own personal feelings on Star Wars. I'm cautiously optimistic for the Rise of Skywalker.

Cellar Door

In my opinion, you should go ahead and watch it and don't worry about being fully up to speed on the other Marvel movies. It's a fairly stand-alone movie so you don't really need to know much about the greater MCU to follow and enjoy the story.

milo bloom

I've said before, they should have planned six saga movies all along. The first three would have the old gang passing the torch to the new group and would involve defeating someone like Snoke who everybody thought was the big bad, but then in the second three movies we'd learn Palpatine was still around and the new group would have to face him on their own. Kinda like what we're getting now but stretched out a bit.

Ranger

Box office expectations? $1.5 billion?

Jay G.

Well, details seem scarce, but keep in mind that Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were brought in sort of late, and were hired to just direct a script that had already been written by Lawrence and Jonathan Kasdan. So there maybe weren't the pre-production issues that would be a warning sign, like, say, if Lord and Miller had turned in their own script. By all accounts, there was no friction until filming started. And once filming starts, it's very rare, and fairly unusual, to fire a director.

Again, the accounts seem to indicate the Lord and Miller's filming style and loose adherence to the script were very different than Lucasfilm was used to. The Kasdans were getting upset about straying from the script, and Lucasfilm was getting nervous about the lack of "coverage" being shot, although that's a very variable thing. I recall an interview with Bill Hader and Alec Berg talking about a particular episode of Barry where they praised the director for not shooting nearly any coverage, just the shots that were needed. So it was a work style culture clash of sorts, and not necessarily that Lord and Miller were doing anything wrong.

I think Lucasfilm was hoping for compromise and/or compliance as they made their wishes heard, and I think in the back of their mind were hoping to just get through production and quietly fix it in post, like with Rogue One where they brought in Tony Gilroy after initial production to re-write the script and then unofficially direct the reshoots. Again, firing a director is rare, and the original director not getting credited is even rarer. It's a very bad look for the film as well. But some tipping point was reached where finally Lucasfilm concluded they had to remove Lord and Miller during production.

At that point they had a crisis. They needed to get in a new director that was not only talented, but a name, to allay the fears of a troubled production. So they got Ron Howard, and when Ron came in, he wanted to do more than just finish the film up, but put his stamp on it so it'd be a "Ron Howard Film." As a result, I think he reshot more than he strictly needed to in order to get a finished film, but when you hire a giant of a director to rescue your movie, you're not really going to say "no" to him on a lot.

So it was a mess, but I don't think it was an obviously avoidable mess. Everyone went into the project on good faith, efforts were made to reconcile creative differences before relationships were severed, and I think everyone was making what they felt was the best decision at the time they were making it. You don't damn a studio head based on one bad result, especially when they've had 3 other hits 3 years in a row.


It's interesting, because there's some parallels between Solo and Justice League, and although Zach Snyder didn't officially get fired from Justice League, WB was obviously in "rescue this please" mode when they hired on Joss Whedon. The difference is it took WB a full 2.5 movies to realize Snyder's style may not work for the DC universe, while Lucasfilm pulled the plug on Lord & Miller midway through their first movie.

Jay G.

Worldwide? That's between TFA's $2 billion and TLJ's $1.3 billion, so sure, that seems reasonable.

Josh-da-man

The idea that Lord and Miller weren't shooting coverage for a big budget, special effects-heavy movie seems really strange. It's just something you do to decrease the amount of pick-ups you have to do later, and give the editor as much footage as possible to work with.

Like with most everything else Disney Star Wars, we will probably never learn any of the behind-the-scenes details (what Lucas' original ST stories were, what CT's IX pitch was, or what went on behind the scenes in any of the movies). All parties involved are NDAed up the ass, and Disney likes to keep a tight grip on how it is perceived. Everyone is going to be on the same page (at least publicly) and there isn't going to be any turmoil going on behind the curtain.

coli

Big grain of salt, as you can take it for what it's worth: (There are no spoilers in the link, it just talks about how they are doing major reshoots).

https://heroichollywood.com/star-war...lker-reshoots/

Let me just say if it's true (Even though I find it hard to believe they are going to do major reshoots 3 months before the release), but this would be a culmunation of 20 years of this franchise having no idea what they want these movies to be. Disney should have drawn a line in the sand in 2015 and go with what they wanted the movies to be, and understand there are going to be a section of the fanbase that won't like it. If they wanted to stick to the TFA route and play it safe, safe, safe for 3 movies, then just do it and go full bore with total fan service. If they wanted to go the TLJ route and give the fans something they may not want, but keep them suprised, than just do it and subvert the hell out of them for 3 movies. The problem is that Lucas/Disney have been trying to play to everyone since 1999 and it's impossible because it's such a mammoth fanbase spanning generations. If this rumor is true, than this movie has gotten disaster written all over it, cause I don't know how you do major reshoots 3 months before the release?

TGM

it is criminal that there wasn't a cohesive 3 movie arc penned out from the beginning. hate RJ and TLJ, but he was given the keys and told to do what he wanted to do so he did.

Mike86

Draven

dex14

https://comicbook.com/2019/09/07/dis...9a9DzJiGiu8UKM

stvn1974

If only Anakin had appeared sooner to try and convince Ben that what he is doing is wrong.

Brack

Ranger

Don't worry about those reshoots, boys. They have top men working on this. Top men.

TGM

Rogue One had a shitload of reshoots and turned out awesome.

Mike86

coli

Jay G.

Maybe I should clarify that it wasn't that they weren't shooting any coverage, but weren't shooting, in Lucafilm's view, enough coverage.

I believe this is the article that originated that:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/he...r-exit-1016619
It's phrased a little oddly, since it describes the number of setups, but not the number of scenes shot. 2-3 setups for a single scene can maybe be reasonable, 12 seems insane unless you're shooting a closeup of everyone in the cockpit, and need a full 5 minutes of Chewbacca's face as the scene plays out. Maybe it was multiple scenes.

"Coverage" used to mean like a wide shot in case the closeup shots didn't come out due to issues with film transport, development, etc. Now it seems like it's more like what you describe "shoot every possible angle, and we'll figure out the one we want in the edit." The article goes on about the directors taking a long time to even start shooting on a given day, but if they were deciding the shots they wanted before they shot, and then had a wide for coverage, they were just doing the work differently. The thing is, on a big production, this means you have a lot of crew, paid hourly, just burning time sitting around. I think this may be why doing a lot of setups seems more productive, since at least that massive crew is doing something.

There is maybe a question of how much coverage makes sense, especially if you're going to do reshoots anyway. Think of Rouge One throwing out all that coverage for the final act that it then completely reshot. There's also a bit of irony in firing directors for not enough coverage because it may mean costly reshoots later, and then hiring a new director who then goes on to do costly reshoots.

The article goes on to describe a mishmash of styles, and likely sensibilities.
I'm betting that, of the Lord & Miller footage to make it into the final cut, it was all from the "exactly as written [in the script]" takes.

While Disney/Lucasfilm would likely prefer to completely bury the firing, the fact that it's public knowledge did mean that they had to at least address it a bit prior to release. Here's an article about it with actors and Ron Howard talking about the experience. They all try and spin it as positive as possible, but you can maybe read between the lines.
https://variety.com/2018/film/featur...rd-1202817841/

Jay G.

This film's production timeline's more compressed than some because JJ hopped on late after a lengthy pre-production period with Colin Trevorrow.

Avengers: Endgame has a much less rushed production, and they were still doing reshoots in March, two months out from the premiere:
https://www.screengeek.net/2019/03/2...game-reshoots/
So yes, sometimes reshoots happen really close to release and no, it doesn't mean the final film will be terrible.

tanman

Reshoots and even switching out writers and directors often have no bearing on the final quality of a film. It may paint a picture, in hind sight, on why a film might have "failed". And definitely affects it's budget and overall monetary success. But lots of great movies are pieced together at the last minute.

tanman

But why would you hire directors specifically to put a different spin on a known character and when they give you that different spin and it doesn't fit you fire them. I know that's an over simplification and that movies can be a moving target but still sure sounds strange. It almost seems like she didn't plan things out with them beforehand so that both sides would have had a clear expectation on what the other side was wanting. And yes the studio head does get blamed because ultimately they are responsible. It seems to me that the difference between Kevin Feige and Kathleen Kennedy is that Feige is the person with the vision. He know what kind of movies he wants to see and he is trying to produce those movies. So it seems like everything that he does is going towards that goal of producing something for the fans. I think that's why they are so successful. Kennedy is acting more as a traditional producer in that she is balancing a whole lot of factors from the vision that the director has, to balancing what the mouse wants, to balancing the budget, and then balancing what the fans want.

Josh-da-man

Lucasfilm does really seem like a rudderless ship at this point.

I mean, even the MCU isn't 100% smooth-sailing (Edgar Wright's Ant-Man, Whedon's issues on Avengers, Gunn being fired and rehired for GOTG3), but they've managed to right the ship and stay the course.

Jay G.

Why would you hire Edgar Wright specifically to put a different spin on a known character (Ant-Man) and when they give you that different spin and it doesn't fit you fire them? And why would it take you 8 years to figure that out?

Marvel's MCU "game plan" wasn't that intricate at the beginning. It was basically "let's do a bunch of standalones, and then maybe we'll team them up in a single film." Avengers could've been cancelled at any point and it would've been fine, because the previous films had only the most basic of interconnection, typically an after-credits scene. Hell, the Tony Stark cameo in The Incredible Hulk doesn't even make sense from a continuity standpoint by the time The Avengers came out. Phase Two did have some fallout from The Avengers, but were otherwise standalone movies again. It wasn't until after Avengers 2 that you started seeing title characters appearing in other title characters' "standalone" films.

You forgot Patty Jenkins being fired from Thor 2.

Marvel Studios decided in 2004 to start producing their own films. It took them 4 years to get their first movie released. They had decent sized hits, but nothing in the billions. It took them 8 years before they had to tie any of their films to another with the first Avengers movie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Studios#Production

Meanwhile, Lucasfilm put out their first new movie within 3 years of being bought by Disney, and it was the start of a trilogy. Yet they still released 3 movies in 3 years that were all $1+ billion hits. Solo was the only flop, critically and financially, and while TRoS has had some behind-the-scenes issues, we don't know what the finished film will be. You talk about righting the ship and staying the course, but forget that Marvel has been making the MCU for over twice as long as Lucasfilm has been making films for Disney. Lucasflm hasn't had time to show that it can right the ship, since it hasn't released a film since its first slip-up (or, if you think TLJ was their first slip-up, since before their pair of slip-ups 4 months apart).