Ron Howard was offered the chance to directThe Phantom Menaceand turned it down. Though, it’s not so simple as that, as the director has recently clarified. Still, the man who would ultimately go on to direct the forthcomingSolo: A Star Wars Storycould have directed the famously malignedEpisode I. What might that have looked like? We’ll never know, but we do know what exactly happened.
Solo: A Star Wars Storyarrives in theaters next weekend and that meansRon Howardhas been making the press rounds to promote it. During a recent interview, the topic of him possibly being offeredStar Wars: The Phantom Menaceback in the day came up. While he admits that did happen, it wasn’t in such a formal way and really boiled down to a single discussion. Here’s what Howard had to say about it.
“I want to clarify that a little. It was a casual conversation in a car park. It was not like I read a script and weighed it carefully. It was a knee-jerk reaction because I immediately felt like George should do it.”
Indeed,George Lucasdid famously go on to direct not just that movie, but all three of theStar Wars prequels. Ron Howard’s knee-jerk reaction is understandable. Why not have the man who created this franchise bring it back after all those years? While hindsight suggests maybe it would have been good to have someone else step in the director’s chair, as they did withThe Empire Strikes BackandThe Return of the Jediprior to the Disney era of Lucasfilm, it was tough to imagine Lucas would do what he ended up doing. Just think, Ron Howard could have gotten his hands onDarth Maul.
George Lucas sold all of Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012 for more than $4 billion and, ever since, he’s scarcely been involved. Though, he did offer some guidance during one scene inSolo: A Star Wars Story. All of the movies so far in the new era have featured different directors. J.J. Abrams is going to be the first repeat director as he stepped in for Colin Trevorrow onStar Wars 9. So, why did Howard decided to step up to the plate forSolo? His explanation is pretty simple.
“Now that other people are broadening the scope and the approach to the movies, it became a more reasonable consideration.”
Phil Lord and Chris Miller were fired fromSoloafter they shot the majority of the movie. Ron Howard was then brought in and, by most early accounts, he managed to pull it off after shooting 70 percent of the movie. While it may not go down as an all-time greatStar Warsflick, it sounds like Howard knows what he’s doing. That only makes us wonder even more what he might have been able to do forThe Phantom Menace. Could he have possibly made Jar Jar Binks not suck? Would he have had the good sense not to kill Darth Maul? We’ll always be left to ponder such questions. This news comes to us courtesy ofTotal Film.
