Solo: A Star Wars Story director Ron Howard has shared a photo from the VFX review of the movie at Skywalker Ranch, which shows the massive TIE fighter battle we caught a glimpse of in the first teaser trailer. Howard has had quite a challenge on his hands with this movie, as he was brought in to reshoot a great deal of it after original directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller departed the project due to creative differences, three weeks before the end of principal photography.
The movie stars Alden Ehrenreich (Hail, Caesar!) as a young Han Solo and touches on the key moments in his early life: meeting Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) and Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover), flying the Millennium Falcon for the first time, and making a name for himself as a notorious smuggler. The movie takes place over the span of six years, following Han from the ages of 18 to 24, and will end about five years before the start of A New Hope.
Related: RON HOWARD SHOT THE SAME SOLO SCRIPT AS LORD & MILLER
Because of the change of hands and the heavy reshoots that Solo needed in order to get it to where the studio wanted it, the marketing has had something of a late start. This has been a cause of concern for some fans, but Howard recently offered reassurances by stating that the edit is locked, and everything is “right on schedule.” Now the director has offered another glimpse into the final stages of post-production, sharing a photo from the VFX review with Industrial Light and Magic, at Skywalker Ranch in Marin, California.
#Solo vfx review with #ILM today at #SkywalkerRanch pic.twitter.com/SeXUEu6XKL
— Ron Howard (@RealRonHoward) March 31, 2018
These TIE fighters feature a different design to anything we’ve seen before, and there are a lot of them in this shot (including one or two that apparently exploded), so this scene will likely be more about fleeing than actually fighting. In the trailer, this sequence showed the Millennium Falcon being pursued by a Star Destroyer in the middle of some kind of space storm. Fortunately, the ship happens to have a very good pilot at the helm.
Despite its initially troubled production, current estimates have Solo pegged for a $150 million opening – similar to the franchise’s last spinoff movie, Rogue One. Of course, the movie’s fate beyond that will depend on whether or not Howard has managed to pull off a movie worthy of such an iconic character. Lord and Miller will both get an executive producer credit on the movie, while Howard will get sole credit as director.
More: When Will We Get The Full Solo Trailer?
Source: Ron Howard
- Solo: A Star Wars Story release date: May 25, 2018
- Star Wars 9 / Star Wars: Episode IX release date: Dec 20, 2019
Be the first to comment