10 Movies That Made Subtle Character Changes At The Last Minute
4. Darth Maul's Cameo Was Retooled To Better Reflect His Personality - Solo: A Star Wars Story
The big surprise in Solo: A Star Wars Story was the hugely unexpected cameo from Darth Maul at the very end, with The Phantom Menace's Ray Park even returning to perform the physical component of the role.
Additionally, original Maul voice actor Peter Serafinowicz was brought back to provide the villain's distinctive vocals, but during post-production it was felt that this iteration of Maul wasn't consistent with the one featured in the various Star Wars animated series.
And so, the decision was made to bring aboard both Star Wars animation honcho Dave Filoni and Sam Witwer, who voiced Maul across all the series' animated shows.
The scene was ultimately re-scripted with help from Witwer, reshot, and then re-dubbed by Witwer himself, replacing Serafinowicz. Witwer said:
"There was stuff that had to happen once I got hired. There was a reshoot that had to happen because people like me and Dave Filoni were letting them know there were a lot of details that weren't consistent... Ultimately, they did the right thing because they hired the people who were the experts on this like Dave Filoni and, I dare say, me, because I'm kind of an expert on what we've been doing with Maul for the past decade, y'know? They were very open to hearing what we had to say and, again, they were so open that they did a reshoot."
Elaborating, Witwer said that he suggested removing a beat from the script where Maul growls:
"[There were] a lot of things in this script where he growls, he does this, he does that... I don't think those are right and I can tell you why I don't think those are right. I can tell you what I think he should say instead."
As for his honest opinion of Serafinowicz's original take? Here it is:
"I don't want to say that what Serafinowicz was doing was bad. It just didn't sound recognisable as the character from The Phantom Menace nor the character from Clone Wars. It was a totally different thing. They needed people to recognise the voice, so there it is."