Arguably one of the biggest movie industry stories of this year was the departure of Phil Lord and Chris Miller from the then-untitled Han Solo project near the end of production with Lucasfilm bringing in Ron Howard to finish it and shoot additional photography.

Directors departing projects over creative differences is not uncommon – think back to Ant Man (2015) and Edgar Wright’s exit, for example – but leaving in the middle of principal production is a little less common.

So far, it’s all been handled in a very diplomatic fashion, Howard took to social media to offer tidbits to fans and Thandie Newton spoke out to say that while Lord and Miller’s exit was troubling, the experience as a whole has been fine.

Aside from a statement released at the time of their departure from what is now called Solo: A Star Wars Story, Lord and Miller have kept quiet. However, at a panel for their MTV animated series Clone High at the Vulture Festival in Los Angeles, the duo finally addressed the issue.

Their response was, unsurprisingly, measured, with Lord comparing it all to a relationship breakup.

“The experience of shooting the movie was wonderful,” Lord said. “We had the most incredible cast and crew and collaborators. I think in terms of us leaving the project, I think everybody went in with really good intentions and our approach to making the movie was different than theirs. That was a really big gap to bridge, and it proved to be too big.” Lord managed a laugh as he added, “Sometimes people break up, and it’s really sad, and it’s really disappointing, but it happens and we learned a lot from our collaborators and we’re better filmmakers for it.” The audience cheered in support as Lord added, “We’re really proud of the work we did on the movie and we wish everybody the best.”

Miller backed up his partner’s statement. “We’re super well-adjusted, obviously we’re doing great. We’re super drunk right now,” he joked. “As Phil said, we had such a great relationship with cast and crew, we were really rooting for them. After we took a much-needed vacation, we got back into it and now we’re writing and producing a sequel to The Lego Movie (2014) and producing a Miles Morales animated Spider-Man.”

Lord and Miller had their pick of projects after the Solo ordeal and in September they signed on to develop and direct an adaptation of The Martian author Andy Weir’s new novel Artemis. It’s still a damn shame all of this happened and it must be difficult to conceive, develop, cast and shoot most of a movie only to be asked to step aside.

Rumours have circulated that Lord and Miller’s tendency toward improvisation and veering from the script rubbed Kathleen Kennedy and/or writer Lawrence Kasdan the wrong way and eventually as Lord says, the gap proved too big to bridge.

The film is scheduled to hit theatres on May 25, 2018 and it’ll be interesting to see how much, if any, of Lord and Miller’s original footage remains.

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