Before they soared with Project Hail Mary, filmmakers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller notoriously stumbled with a problem-plagued Star Wars story. The directing duo were sent packing from the 2018 prequel Solo: A Star Wars Story after just 90 days of shooting due to “creative differences.” On their way out the door, the duo admitted in a statement that “our vision and process weren’t aligned” with their Lucasfilm overlords, but they did note that they were “really proud of the amazing and world-class work of our cast and crew.”
Part of that world-class crew was Neal Scanlan, a protégé of Jim Henson who has led the creature creation for the Star Wars franchise beginning with The Force Awakens. “We had a great time with Phil and Chris,” Scanlan told Gold Derby in a recent interview from his U.K.-based creature shop. “Dare I say it, we are a lucky department in that often we’re making sort of candy, and we went through the whole journey of Solo, [using] some of the creatures and the ideas that Phil and Chris had.”
Some of the signature aliens that Scanlan’s team worked with Lord and Miller on — and which survived the final cut under replacement director Ron Howard — included the worm-like Lady Proxima and the Corellian hounds from the opening action sequence, the multi-limbed Ardennian pilot Rio Durant, and the tentacled, Lovecraftian summa-verminoth (aka “space-o-pus”) that terrorizes the Kessel Run. Scanlan wound up with an Oscar nod for his Solo efforts.
“That was where our work relationship was born,” Scanlan said of that formative time on Solo with Lord and Miller. “I think what they found engaging was the process of seeing things in early sketches and then coloring them up and pushing them on a little bit and putting them in a scenario It was a very fun, creative environment in which for them to explore what was potential in the world of practical creatures.
“And then obviously filming was fun, too, because you take those ideas and you make them into something real and you go onto set and film them, and I think they saw that process,” Scanlan continues. “That journey from beginning to end was something maybe very new for them at the time.”
At least publicly, Lord and Miller described their Solo debacle as a learning experience. “As negative as the ending was, and as deeply misunderstood as we felt, the lasting memory is of the great collaboration we had,” Miller told the KCRW podcast The Business in 2022. “And we met such amazing, talented crew that we still work with, and love and are in touch with to this day,” Lord added.
Sure enough, Scanlan confirms the directors remained in touch in the intervening years. “They would make contact and say, ‘Are you available to do some design work?’ We were always so busy and locked into the Star Wars environment, so I was never able to do that,” Scanlan told us. But then, in 2024, “everything fell into place. Their phone call came, and we had just finished some projects here, and there was literally an open window.”
Lord and Miller had another shot at a sci-fi epic and they needed the best in the biz to design the extraterrestrial on whom the movie hinged. Soon enough, Scanlan’s crew was cranking concepts for what would become Project Hail Mary’s Rocky.
“There’s no one else we even considered,” Miller said.
Lord and Miller gave Scanlan some “abstract and simple sketches” that he used a jumping-off point. Over the course of six weeks and more than 100 designs and models, they found their star. Scanlan’s team would go on to build multiple versions of a physical puppet, manipulated by actor and puppeteer James Ortiz, who appeared in every scene with Ryan Gosling. (There were some CGI touch-ups in post-production.)
“You capture these moments that never would’ve happened if Ryan was talking to a tennis ball,” said Miller. “There’s really a thing there, and when it does something unusual, Ryan reacts honestly and viscerally.”
So on this Star Wars Day, we can thank the misfire of Solo for the majesty of Project Hail Mary… and the magic of Rocky.
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