A good way to spark a little interest in just about anything is to mention Crazy Rich Asians filmmaker Jon M. Chu’s involvement, which is partly why news of Disney+’s plans for a Willow series, a sequel to the 1988 film from Lucasfilm and director Ron Howard, was met with a chorus of “Eh, why not?” However, that was nearly three months ago. Now, according to TheWrap, Chu has stepped away from the project (at least in regards to directing) due to scheduling issues, leaving us once again to ask why this is happening in the first place, as we normally do with seemingly unnecessary retreads.
Chu, a very vocal Willow fan who was originally slated to direct the series’ pilot, released a statement via Instagram detailing both his decision to step away in this capacity and his disappointment in the matter altogether. Ever the multitasker, he also took the opportunity to announce that he and his wife, Kristin Hodge, are expecting their third child, which doubles as a very sweet development and a decent reason to no longer have the time to direct. Here’s the full statement:
I’m heartbroken to let you all know that I unfortunately have to step away from directing Willow. With the production schedule moving due to continued lockdowns in the UK, and with a new baby coming this summer (surprise!), the timing is just not going to work for me and my family.
As you may know, Willow has been one of my favorite movies since I was a child, so I’m devastated that I won’t be able to work with some of my heroes old and new like Kathy, Ron, Jon, Wendy, Michelle, and the amazing cast and crew they’ve put together. Like a kid seeing Willow for the first time in the ‘80s, I will look forward to watching this magical new world unfold as a very enthusiastic fan. And boy do they have an adventure in store for you! I can’t wait for you all to experience it soon.
Much love, and take care of each other during these fast changing times,
Jon M. Chu
Chu is still attached as one of the executive producers of the series while Solo writer Jonathan Kasdan and Wendy Mericle are billed as showrunners. Original star Warwick Davis is set to return.
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leaving us once again to ask why this is happening in the first place, as we normally do with seemingly unnecessary retreadsExcuse me, because it’s a great setting, I’m a sucker for fantasy, and this damn soundtrack pulls me right in –
I don’t think it’s simply nostalgia when I say that Hollywood movie scores were so much better in the 80s and 90s.
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE BABY!
Warwick was on TV on Christmas Day in the UK presenting a Christmas special of his gameshow and he looked and sounded *really* unwell. I don’t know what was going on and I hope he’s better, but if I was a producer on this Willow show I’d have been feeling pretty nervous.
I’m so sad Val Kilmer can no longer speak and we won’t get Madmartigan back in full force.
I still can’t figure out if Jon M. Chu is good at directing.
Well, I was expecting to read “creative differences” somewhere in here, so that’s a win, I suppose.
When I got Disney+ last year, I watched “Willow” for the first time in I don’t know how long. Asking me about the last time I saw “Willow” is like asking me about the last time I ate a crème filled Entemmann’s chocolate cupcake. I grew up loving it, remember every taste and texture, but haven’t enjoyed it in well over a decade.“Willow” holds up. Warwick Davis is a joy; he really brings what could have been a cartoonishly one-dimensional character to life. And it’s easy to forget how goddamn magnetic Val Kilmer was as an actor in his prime. I’d even argue this role – sandwiched between his boyish turn in “Top Secret!” and his legendary supporting portrayal of the hard bitten and tragic Doc Holiday in “Tombstone” – is peak Kilmer. Madmartigan is essentially a medieval Han Solo with a sword in lieu of a blaster. But he does it so damn well, what should be considered outright theft translates into homage. So yea – I still love this damn movie. And I still believe it is objectively excellent. That said, watching the movie as an adult, for the first time in ages, surfaced all sorts of interesting things.First of all, while the movie starts with an action packed scene – the smuggling of a baby out of an evil witch’s castle, prophecies, demon dogs – it then slows to a crawl. I don’t mean this as a negative. It just surprised me that the child viewer I was when I first saw this didn’t become impatient with Willow’s struggles with paying back debts and failing to get an apprenticeship, or a surprisingly long montage of Willow and his fellow villagers walking through the woods. (The latter scene is a good opportunity to bathe in the lush soundtrack, which was composed by James Horner and who you can Google to see the fuck-ton of film scores of his you’ve heard, including “Aliens”, “Field of Dreams”, “Apollo 13”, “Braveheart”, and “Titanic”).
Speaking of “child viewers” – holy shit this movie is violent. I am 98% sure I saw this movie in the theaters, which in 1988 would have made me 7 years old. This is a movie that STARTS with a brand new mother being sentenced to death, almost immediately followed by a scene of a midwife being eaten alive by Rottweilers in rubber masks. There are numerous sword fights that involve bloody wounds and disembowelments; Madmartigan’s frenemy Arik gets stabbed in the gut and bleeds out; the evil General Kael takes a sword hack to the chin, is impaled three times, and is then thrown from a battlement. The scene were a troll is transformed into a two headed dragon is at a minimum queasy if not downright terrifying. In defense of my mother, who I am also 98% sure took me to the theater to see this bloodbath (body count=47, higher than “American Psycho” and “Silence of the Lambs” combined), the movie is rated PG. Gotta love the 80s.
One thing that resonated for me watching “Willow” now, as a parent, is how real the early scenes of Willow with his family feel to me at the farmstead. It brings far more weight to what Willow risks losing if he doesn’t make it home, what he’s missing while he’s out in the savage world away from his wife and kids, and what he’s fighting for if Bavmorda becomes an unstoppable menace.
The last thing that popped out for me in a big, new way that I never really fixated on before, was a really troubling plot point: Madmartigan falls in love with Sorsha because he’s been dosed with a love potion (the Dust of Broken Hearts for you nerds out there). Sorsha, however, is completely sober when she’s seduced by Madmartigan’s poetry and charm. Granted, there was some sexual tension between them before Madmartigan gets dusted (in real life as well, after filming Kilmer and Joanne Whalley got married and had a child before their split 8 years later). But are we to believe that Sorsha abandons her mother and the life she’s built for herself to help this random dude who was in drag the first time they met? And does the love potion wear out, and if so, will Madmartigan still be in love with Sorsha? Is Madmartigan, in affect, in this relationship against his will? As a kid, you don’t think about these things too much and it only makes sense that they’d become a couple, but as an adult, in a movie filled with magic acorns and talking goats, I found the idea that this relationship had legs to be the least believable detail.
“Willow” was always one of those movies that I thought was a cult classic that enthralled me and my friends, but failed at the box office. It seemed prime to kick off a trilogy, if not an entire cinematic universe, and the fact that it didn’t always made me think it must have been a dud. I was pleasantly surprised to learn the movie actually did pretty well. Expectations were sky high and since it didn’t reach “block buster” status, it was considered somewhat of a disappointment by the studio. But the technology developed in the production of the film was ground breaking and made possible later evolutionary leaps in CGI, like “Terminator 2”. And kids of a certain age love the shit out of this movie. I would even say “Willow” had as big an impact on me, if not bigger, as “Star Wars”.
I just watched it on Disney+ out of curiosity and, well, wow, I’m not sure what movie you watched. I’m a child of the 80s too, and a huge fantasy fan, and now I know why I barely remembered it. I’d rather watch Krull or Beastmaster before watching that again. The stupid brownies were intolerable. The inability of Howard to in any way shoot a comprehensible action scene, or even pace a movie, just adds to the dullness.
Ah well, I guess it just caught me at the right time. If I saw it in the theater (pretty sure I did) I would have been seven; I certainly remember the brownies being hilarious on first watch. I still kind of like them, having a soft spot for Kevin Pollack. I certainly am not going to argue against the greatness of “Krull” or “Beastmaster”. What a perfect double feature…
OK, I’m gonna put this out there to see if anyone had the same experience. At some point in the 90s myself and a few of my friends got the idea that Warwick Davis had died. This was not an internet hoax as that forum was largely unavailable at the time. I’m pretty sure it was reported by some mainstream news outlet, so we just took it as truth. Then, all of a sudden, there he is in Phantom Menace. Did anyone else see this, or were we just crazy?