Ron Howard Is Directing Star Wars And The Internet Is Having An Arrested Development Field Day

Ron Howard directing

In the movie world, Ron Howard is one of Hollywood's veteran directors. On the TV side of things, there might some folks out there who remember his Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days years fondly, but he's frequently thought of first as the narrator on Arrested Development. With the announcement earlier today that Howard will direct the Han Solo movie following Phil Lord and Chris Miller's exit, Howard's two worlds are clashing, as his entry into the Star Wars franchise is now the fodder of Arrested Development fans everywhere due to the unusual circumstances surrounding his involvement. Take the tweet NBC's Ronan Farrow sent out, for example.

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Han Solo bragged in A New Hope about making the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, and while we can't help but wonder if the Han Solo movie might show this accomplishment, for now we're happy to just go along with the Arrested Development narrator's revelation that it was all a lie. But the fun doesn't stop there. TV writer Aaron Wiener threw in a classic banana stand reference, referring to the Bluth family business from the show's early years.

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And of course we can't move on without having Ron Howard's narrator commenting on Phil Lord and Chris Miller's unusual departure at the beginning of the week.

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Not all the jokes are centered around Ron Howard's narrator. Some Arrested Development fans are looking elsewhere for their fun, like a twist on one of Lucille Bluth's more memorable lines.

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To cap off (though you can browse Twitter for even more Arrested Development/Star Wars memes), we have one of George Oscar Bluth II's regular lines from the TV series suggesting what may be going through Phil Lord and Chris Miller's heads now that they're off the Han Solo movie.

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Only two days after it was announced that Phil Lord and Chris Miller were no longer directing the Han Solo movie, Ron Howard has now stepped in to oversee the last three weeks of principal photography, the reshoots happening later this year and the post-production process. Both Lucasfilm and the Lord/Miller duo cited "creative differences" for the parting of ways, while several reports allege that Miller and Lord were fired by Lucasfilm because they had been feuding with studio head Kathleen Kennedy and writer Lawrence Kasdan about the tone of the Han Solo movie. In any case, now Howard is the one helming the smuggler's standalone adventure, and we can only hope that one of the actors or members of the crew will drop a few Arrested Development references in his presence.

Despite the behind-the-scenes shakeup, Lucasfilm still has the Han Solo movie scheduled for release on May 25, 2018.

Adam Holmes
Senior Content Producer

Connoisseur of Marvel, DC, Star Wars, John Wick, MonsterVerse and Doctor Who lore, Adam is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend. He started working for the site back in late 2014 writing exclusively comic book movie and TV-related articles, and along with branching out into other genres, he also made the jump to editing. Along with his writing and editing duties, as well as interviewing creative talent from time to time, he also oversees the assignment of movie-related features. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Journalism, and he’s been sourced numerous times on Wikipedia. He's aware he looks like Harry Potter and Clark Kent.