After a chaotic flurry of news earlier this week, the details are finally starting to come into focus: directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller were fired from directing the Han Solo standalone project because they clashed with Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy’s vision for the film, and this morning, they were officially replaced by The Da Vinci Code director Ron Howard.
But the directing duo had been attached to this film for two years, and had already filmed for four and a half months when they were let go. Will they receive Han Solo director credits on the final movie, or will this officially become “a Ron Howard film”? Find out the latest info about this entire fiasco.
The honest answer to the question posted above is, “we don’t know yet.” But a reporter at The Wrap spoke with entertainment lawyer Bryan Sullivan, who claims that “the studio is obligated to give [Lord and Miller] credits” on the picture. He probably knows more about this situation than I do, but since the specifics of the directors’ contracts aren’t public knowledge, there’s still a lot of guess work going on.
One of the other big questions about this scenario involves how the duo are being paid for their work. The Wrap also checked the Directors Guild of America’s stance on matters like these and discovered the following:
DGA rules state that when Lucasfilm showed Lord and Miller the door, they had to pay any remaining balance on their salaries (whether they finished all or part of the film). But nothing in the union agreement guarantees a director “contingent compensation,” [a source] said, meaning they would have to negotiate to retain any performance-based bonuses commonly attached to a blockbuster franchise like Star Wars.
Backend points for huge films like this are where the real money is made. There’s been speculation that because Lord and Miller and Kennedy’s official statements about their departure seemed amicable, it’s possible that Disney/Lucasfilm may have paid the filmmakers a lump sum when they left instead of the directors retaining a percentage of the grosses.
In addition to all of this, we still have to wonder what sort of stipulations are in Ron Howard’s contract. He certainly didn’t step in to take over an embattled production as a favor, so one would assume a veteran who’s been at the helm of more than two dozen movies over the course of his career would be savvy enough to work out a deal in his favor. We’ll have to wait to see how all of this shakes out, and in the meantime, Howard begins production on the Han Solo film on July 10 with the intent for the movie to stay on course for its May 25, 2018 release date.
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