Phil Lord And Chris Miller Wanted To Make A “Gritty” And “Grimy” Solo Movie

Solo: A Star Wars Story might have just recently premiered but it's pretty hard to forget that the film's production was in shambles last year when Lucasfilm decided to fire original directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller.

Now, information about the director's plans for Solo continue to make their way online and a new report reveals that Lord and Miller would have wanted the Star Wars spinoff to have a grittier tone.

According to Variety, Lord and Miller had actually created a different tone for Solo, conjuring a gritty and grimy atmosphere that was "reflective of the seedy underbelly of conniving crooks, battle-weary war deserters, and ruthless syndicates on display."

Though earlier reports regarding Lord and Miller's work on Solo suggested that the filmmakers were trying to inject comedy and improvisation into the film, this new report adds a new slant of light on what the 21 Jumpstreet directors wanted for the Star Wars spinoff.

However, while the directors may have wanted a grittier atmosphere for Solo, screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan still says the tone Lord and Miller had planned just wasn't right for the franchise.

"Tone is everything to me. That's what movies are made of," Kasdan told the publication. "But this was a very complicated situation. When you go to work in the morning on a ‘Star Wars' movie, there are thousands of people waiting for you, and you have to be very decisive and very quick about it. When you are making those split-second decisions — and there are a million a day — then you are committing to a certain tone. If the [producers] think that isn't the tone of the movie, you're going to have trouble. It may not always end this way, but no one was happy about it. It was agony."

Even if the directors tried working on a less comedic tone for the film, Lord and Miller just brought too much experimentation and improvisation to the table, causing trouble for Solo.

"Lord and Miller drew Kennedy's ire for stretching days out with experimentation," Solo actress Emilia Clarke explained. "We were all still very much in a collaborative place of 'Where does this want to go?'"

In the end, Lucasfilm didn't like whatever Lord and Miller were doing, and they decided to separate ways with the filmmaker. A few days after firing the directors, the studio brought in director Ron Howard to helm the film, and though the film didn't do quite well at the box office, Solo has received warm reviews from critics.

Solo: A Star Wars Story is currently screening in cinemas.

Read: There's a Solo: A Star Wars Story Trailer with Only Material from Phil Lord and Chris Miller