As she steps down as the head of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy says there’s only one project she has “a bit of regret” about from her tenure overseeing Star Wars and Indiana Jones: Solo: A Star Wars Story.
Asked by Deadline about projects she “wish you had back” or “maybe you could have done better with more time,” she specifically cited the 2018 Han Solo prequel, which starred Alden Ehrenreich in the role that made Harrison Ford a household name.
While she and writer Lawrence Kasdan were “so excited about that idea,” she explained, she eventually came to realize “fundamentally, conceptually, you cannot replace Han Solo, at least right now.”
But by that point, it was too late to turn back. She added…
As wonderful as Alden Ehrenreich was, and he really was good, and is a wonderful actor, we put him in an impossible situation. And once you’re in it and once you’re committed, you’ve got to carry on. I think I have a bit of regret about that, but not about the moviemaking and filmmaking. I don’t have regrets about that. I just think that conceptually, we did it too soon.
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Although Kennedy says she does not regret “the moviemaking” in Solo, the film was marked by behind-the-scenes upheavals. It went into production under the direction of 21 Jump Street and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller. But during the shoot, creative differences arose between Lord and Miller and Kennedy and Kasdan. Eventually, Lord and Miller left the project, which was then completed by director Ron Howard.
Howard’s Solo went on to get tepid reviews (it holds a 69 percent on Rotten Tomatoes) and performed horribly at the box office, at least by the standards of Star Wars. With $393 million in worldwide grosses, it is the lowest-grossing live-action Star Wars film to date.
Despite comparable box-office results, though, Kennedy said she did not regret making the fifth Indiana Jones, Dial of Destiny.
“[Harrison Ford] wanted a chance at another, and we did that for him. I think that was the right thing to do. He wanted to do that movie,” she explained.
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