Why the Star Wars Solo movie failed, according to Lucasfilm boss

As she prepares to hand over the reins, Kathleen Kennedy reveals that the film she regrets is, without suspense, the one about Han Solo’s youth.

As Kathleen Kennedy prepares to leave her position at the head of Lucasfilm, the producer finally opens up about certain creative decisions that she would have liked to approach differently.

After nearly fourteen years of reshaping the world of George Lucas for Disney, Kathleen Kennedy says she has very few regrets. But still, she knows that Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) was not a completely successful film:

“No, I don’t really have any regrets. Well… maybe a little regret about Solo: A Star Wars Story”she confides to Deadline.

The producer explains that the film was born from genuine creative enthusiasm, notably thanks to the involvement of Lawrence Kasdan. But a major difficulty quickly emerged once production began.

“We got involved in this project and we realized that, fundamentally, conceptually, we couldn’t replace Han Solo — at least not at that time…”

In the process, Kathleen Kennedy takes care to defend Alden Ehrenreich, the actor chosen to succeed Harrison Ford:

“As great as Alden Ehrenreich was — and he really was, he’s a great actor — we put him in an impossible situation.”

For the boss of Lucasfilm, the failure of Solo is above all a question of timing.

“I probably have a slight regret about it, but not about the work of making the film. I just think that, conceptually, we did it too soon…”

Because we must remember that the character of Han Solo died only three years previously in theaters, in The Force Awakens. The memory of the character, played by Harrison Ford for 4 decades, was still too strong to hope to relaunch Solo with another face. The film still brought in almost $400 million in worldwide revenue (not enough to be profitable, that said) and totaled 1.5 million admissions in France.

These confidences come as Kathleen Kennedy prepares her exit from Lucasfilm, leaving creative supervision to Dave Filoni and economic management to Lynwen Brennan.