Phil Lord and Chris Miller's Version of SOLO Reportedly Had More of a "Gritty, Grimy" Tone

When Phil Lord and Chris Miller were originally hired to direct Solo: A Star Wars Story for Lucasfilm, a lot of fans thought that meant the movie would be filled with a lot of silly humor. After all, that's what these two directors are known for. Well, it turns out that one of the reasons they were fired from the film and replaced with Ron Howard was not because of too much humor. One of the reasons was because it may have been too dark.

According to screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan, Lord and Miller had "conjured a gritty, grimy palette reflective of the seedy underbelly of conniving crooks, battle-weary war deserters and ruthless criminal syndicates on display." Kathleen Kennedy wasn't happy with this.

Kasdan told Variety, "Tone is everything to me. That’s what movies are made of." He goes on to explain:

"This was a very complicated situation. When you go to work in the morning on a Star Wars movie, there are thousands of people waiting for you, and you have to be very decisive and very quick about it. When you are making those split-second decisions – and there are a million a day – then you are committing to a certain tone. If the [producers] think that isn’t the tone of the movie, you’re going to have trouble."

And they did have trouble that ended up with Lord and Miller being fired with only a few weeks of shooting to go. Having learned that they were developing a darker version of the film, I'm curious to know how that movie would have turned out. That certainly would have been an interesting take. But, in the end, I'm completely happy with what Ron Howard ended up delivering. 

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