Phil Lord and Chris Miller turned Solo firing into a good thing

Phil Lord and Chris Miller had a very public breakup with the Star Wars franchise, but they feel it helped their next projects become even better.

The creative duo of Phil Lord and Chris Miller have made the most of their firing from Solo: A Star Wars Story. Their departure from Solo allowed them to spend more time on two huge, recent releases: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and LEGO Movie 2. While speaking with Germain Lussier of io9, they talked about how leaving Star Wars helped them on the two projects:

"“Obviously we were able to spend a lot of time on these movies and it’s, I think, our good luck that we got to spend so much time making movies we care about,” Lord told io9 this week. Added Miller, “And, you know, we were really passionate about both of these films and it was a real opportunity for us to be able to really dig in on both of them and be really involved in every aspect of the production.”"

The split made big headlines back in June 2017 when Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm, announced that the duo and Star Wars had agreed to part ways over “different creative visions” in regards to the film. It only took two days for the revealing details behind Lord and Miller’s departure to surface, with tensions over the comedy that the duo injected into the film, and script changes and improvisation becoming a boiling point.

From that point, Ron Howard was brought on, and Solo went on to have an underwhelming (by Star Wars standards) box office performance due to a number of reasons. But audiences have let it be known that they want a sequel.

More from Solo: A Star Wars Story

• A look back at ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ 5 years later
• How many Oscars has Star Wars won?
• How did the Millennium Falcon make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs?
• Emilia Clarke would love to reprise her Star Wars role — she just hasn’t been asked yet
• Will Alden Ehrenreich return as Han Solo?

Their replacement on Solo didn’t slow down Lord and Miller.

On LEGO Movie 2, the two served as producers and co-wrote the entire script for the follow-up to the hit original. It’s set for a Feb. 8 release.

On Spider-Verse, Lord and Miller served as producers (Lord was a writer on the film as well); the film has gained critical acclaim and captured audiences with a witty, diverse and rich story. Spider-Verse was just announced as an Oscar nominee for Best Animated Feature Film as well, a clear recognition of what the two accomplished on the film.

There are various what-ifs to think about in the context of the Lord and Miller departure. What would their cut of Solo looked like? Would it have won over audiences more than the Howard-led project? Would a Lord and Miller-led Solo movie come at the cost of Spider-Verse not reaching its full potential?

While it’s fun to play the what-if game, clearly Phil Lord and Chris Miller aren’t harping on the past.

Solo: A Star Wars Story is now streaming on Netflix.