Dogged by very public production woes, solo: a star wars story comes with plenty to prove. Then again, the galaxy’s coolest smuggler has always thrived with trouble on his heels.
3,720 TO ONE.
These, as any Last Exit To Nowhere T-shirt-sporting geek could tell you, are the (approximate) odds of Han Solo successfully navigating an asteroid field, according to C-3PO in The Empire Strikes Back. For the cast and crew of Solo: A Star Wars Story, it also must have felt like the odds of meeting their May 2018 release date. As the world knows, 22 Jump Street’s Phil Lord and Chris Miller were dismissed mid-way through production. It became a production frozen in carbonite.
Just nine months later, on a late March morning, Ron Howard, who took over the controls, is on buoyant form. With just two days of scoring left (John Powell has composed the music but Star Wars veteran John Williams has written Solo his first theme), 200 VFX shots to final and a sound mix to finish, Howard is about to steer Solo home. It is the filmmaking equivalent of making the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. Scrub that — eight parsecs.
“The fact is, we’ve got a hell of a lot of work to do,” laughs Howard, taking a break at Abbey Road Studios. “The whole thing has been very focused, very intense but incredibly enjoyable. We all know we are going to make our date and we’re feeling really resolved and solid about the movie.”
This story is from the May 2018 edition of Empire Australasia.
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This story is from the May 2018 edition of Empire Australasia.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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