“Unexpected this is, and unfortunate.”
What a truly confusing turn of events.
Going solely on the information we’ve been given, it would seem Kennedy and Kasdan had a problem with how Lord & Miller executed the script. I can’t help but be suspicious of whether that’s really the reason or just the spin both sides are putting on it.
I’m sure it’s possible it just took everyone until this point in time to realize things weren’t working out. But only now (at the end, do you understand?) with principal photography almost over? Yikes. I mean, you don’t hire the guys who made 21 and 22 Jump Street and The Lego Movie and not expect them to do their own thing.
You’ve got to wonder just what exactly LFL thought would happen when they hired the guys in the first place. Based on what we’re hearing, the directors had tensions with LFL from day one.
Lucasfilm has now had issues with its directors on both of the standalone movies made so far. Even on TFA we know Abrams tried to gain as much control over this franchise as he could before Kennedy put her foot down. By contrast, the worst that’s happened with TLJ is Rian Johnson asking the release be pushed back from May to December so he’d have more time to work on the script … and LFL complying.
Speaking of which, it will be very interesting to see if this Han Solo movie doesn’t get delayed as well. Sure, they’re sticking to the release date for now (and no, it wouldn’t look good if they pushed it to December in the next couple weeks with less than a year to go), but is there anything huge from other studios currently scheduled for December of next year?
It would be kind of hilarious if this is what finally puts Ron Howard in the director’s chair of a Star Wars prequel.