George Lucas Once Had a "Brilliant Idea" to Have Robin Williams Voice HOWARD THE DUCK in a "Special Edition" Remake
There are Hollywood what-ifs that haunt you, and then there are Hollywood what-ifs that absolutely should have happened. A Special Edition version of Howard the Duck with Robin Williams doing the voice? That would’ve been interesting to see.
A 2002 Audible series starring Robin Williams has been quietly circulating online after X user Todd Spence posted a clip from one of its episodes featuring a conversation between Williams and George Lucas.
The whole thing is a fascinating time capsule, packed with Lucas in a rare loose, candid mood, pitching ideas and cracking jokes, and it feels like he could say anything. At one point the subject turns to a film so thoroughly panned that most people still wince at the mention of it.
"One of my brilliant ideas was to take Howard the Duck and redo Howard as a digital character, then get a better voice such as yourself," Lucas told Williams. "Do the same movie… pull [Howard] out and, with a better voice, bring him back."
Lucas followed it up with what might be the most self-aware joke he has ever made in a public setting: "Howard the Duck – Special Edition. You hated it before, you'll loathe it now."
Give the man credit for knowing exactly what he had on his hands. Howard the Duck arrived in theaters in 1986 as one of the first major comic book adaptations ever produced, and it was a disaster on basically every front.
Critics tore it apart, audiences mostly stayed away, and it walked away with just $37 million at the box office. For a film that came from the executive producer of Star Wars, that sting had to linger.
The character himself, rendered in a deeply unsettling duck suit with glassy eyes and a flat, uninspired voice performance, became shorthand for everything a comic book movie could get wrong.
Which is exactly why the Robin Williams pitch is so intriguing. Williams wasn't just a good voice actor, he was one of the greatest comedic actors and voice actors who ever lived.
His turn as the Genie in Aladdin is still considered a defining performance in animation history, the kind of work that makes you realize a single performer can completely transform a film's entire energy.
Reimagining Howard as a fully digital character and handing that voice work to Williams isn't a bad idea at all. It's actually kind of a great one.
Of course, the phrase "George Lucas Special Edition" carries its own complicated baggage. The Star Wars Special Editions released in 1997 are still a sore subject for a large portion of the fanbase, and the changes Lucas made over the years, including the infamous Greedo shooting first, have never fully stopped being debated.
So, even if the concept of a Howard remake had legs, the execution is sure to have have raised some eyebrows. It never happened, obviously. But Howard the Duck did find its way back into pop culture through a much gentler door.
The character showed up as a cheeky Easter egg in both Guardians of the Galaxy films, which was a great version of Howard the Duck, and I would still like to see more of him in the MCU.
Whether a Williams-voiced, digitally updated Howard could have redeemed the original film entirely is impossible to say. But the thought experiment alone is interesting, and hearing Lucas pitch it so casually, with that self-deprecating punchline, makes the whole thing feel like a missed opportunity that was almost within reach.
We'll just have to live with wondering what could have been.