George Lucas asked Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, and Robert Zemeckis to direct the SW Prequels, but they refused, all of them saying; "George, you should do it!"

The Star Wars prequels ("Phantom Menace," "Attack of the Clones," and "Revenge of the Sith") don't exactly have the greatest reputation with movie fans, there is, of course, a subculture that absolutely adores them, including none other than James Cameron, but their reputation for being the weakest SW films is well known.

Ron Howard was a guest on the HappySadConfused podcast a few years back and confided with the show's host that George Lucas asked him and a few other marquee filmmakers to direct the “Star Wars” prequels.

“He did, he did [ask],” Howard said. “He didn’t necessarily want to direct them, and he told me that he had talked to [Robert] Zemeckis, he talked to me, he talked to Steven Spielberg. I was the third one he spoke to. They had all said the same thing, ‘George, you should just do it!’”

Lucas also wanted Lawrence Kasdan to write the trilogy based on his story treatments and early drafts, but Kasdan turned it down.  Imagine how different and substantially better those films would have been .... of course, Lucas' direction wasn't necessarily the issue, it was more the writing and Kasdan, a SW veteran, would have definitely helped in that regard.