Star Wars: Han Solo - 9 Big Implications Of Lord & Miller's Firing

2. It Could Damage Lucasfilm's Rep

Kathleen Kennedy
Georges Biard [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

One of the great things Lucasfilm have been doing is hiring hot young directors. While J.J. Abrams was mostly a safe pair of hands, the rest of the directing decisions have been people who have made smaller, weirder fare:

Josh Trank was hired because of Chronicle; while he'd directed Godzilla, a big factor in Gareth Edwards' hiring was Monsters; likewise Trevorrow and Safety Not Guaranteed, as opposed to Jurassic World; Rian Johnson's biggest movie was Looper, which had a budget of $30m.

The hiring of Phil Lord and Chris Miller was in that vein too, and their firing is worrying. Trank was also fired, and Edwards - while he was still credited as director - was forced to one side as Lucasfilm took charge.

Apart from that fact it's Star Wars, it does run mean there's a chance these movies - in particular the Anthology films - could be viewed as something of a poisoned chalice, and leave in question why any more upcoming directors like those mentioned would want to go near it.

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NCTJ-qualified journalist. Most definitely not a racing driver. Drink too much tea; eat too much peanut butter; watch too much TV. Sadly only the latter paying off so far. A mix of wise-old man in a young man's body with a child-like wonder about him and a great otherworldly sensibility.