Colin Trevorrow Drops Out as Director of Star Wars: Episode IX

Posted by on September 6th, 2017   Filed under: Action, Industry News, Sci-fi

trevorrow

With the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi now just a few months away, Disney and Lucasfilm have made a surprise announcement regarding the next planned film in the series, Episode IX. It appears that there is yet another creative shake-up at hand, this time with director Colin Trevorrow (Jurassic World) being forced to leave the project. Once again, we are hearing that Kathleen Kennedy was butting heads with Trevorrow and decided to take care of business before things got out of hand (as they did on the Han Solo movie). Here is the rather short official statement that was released online yesterday:


“Lucasfilm and Colin Trevorrow have mutually chosen to part ways on Star Wars: Episode IX. Colin has been a wonderful collaborator throughout the development process but we have all come to the conclusion that our visions for the project differ. We wish Colin the best and will be sharing more information about the film soon.”

Trevorrow’s most recent film The Book of Henry was released earlier this year to terrible reviews, which seemed to worry some fans although it is unclear if that had anything to do with his dismissal. THR is reporting that there have been issues with the Episode IX script for a while now with Jack Thorne (Wonder, The Last Panthers) being brought on for rewrites last month. Rian Johnson is now said to be the frontrunner to take over the directing job although J.J. Abrams has been mentioned as a possibility as well. Are you disappointed by this announcement or do you think it will be a good thing for Star Wars: Episode IX?



  • mitch

    episode 9 will be the first movie ever to be directed by a focus group

  • Matthew Goddard

    I thought Rogue One had that achievement?

  • Claudio

    to be fair, almost every director would be a better choice for IX than trevorrow.

  • Jake

    Sean predicted this on episode 616 – It Comes At Night. Good call Sean.

    I am a fan of Rian Johnson and Last Jedi looks awesome, but I would still like to see them bring in a new director. Having a different director for each entry in this new trilogy seems better than one directed by Abrams and two directed by Johnson, or vice versa. It’s time that Spielberg is handed the reins to a Star Wars movie. Bring in the Beard!

  • Bandit Manatee

    What is going on at disney/Lucas film? Everyone complains about trevorrow but I think he would have delivered a successful blockbuster from a box office standpoint just like he did with Jurassic world. Had to have been a personality conflict.

  • Jake

    According to the Hollywood Reporter article it was more to do with his script. Apparently he had gone through several re-writes, and hadn’t delivered what LucasFilm wanted/hoping for. They had brought in another writer in the last few months too. Maybe he didn’t want to direct someone else’s screenplay so he stepped down? I do have a hard time believing it was his decision to leave though. What up and coming filmmaker willingly leaves a Star Wars movie?

  • Flo Lieb

    Why hire a new director anyway? Easiest thing would be to just digitally replace all the actors from Return of the Jedi with the new cast. Saves a lot of production costs too.

  • LordAwesome

    How about David Lynch? He’s the cool new thing on TV right now, isn’t it?

  • Matt the Kiwi

    Get Bob Zemekis on the job. I’m up for a Castaway styled Star Wars film where the island becomes a planet and Wilson is a run down droid.

  • Lior

    The trend of grabbing young directors who made a successful movie or two is finding its cracks. Those directors will tend to want to leave their mark. (Trevorrow said publicly after Jurassic World that he wants to go back to films where he can have a more personal touch). There isn’t much room in this franchise for “autuers” or directors with a strong personal vision. Two thirds of the original trilogy was handled by “jobbers” and they did a pretty good job. So I’m fine with Ron Howard directing a Star Wars film, for example. In the olden days the vision was essentially kept with two people, Lucas and Kasdan, and the directors were there to just implement that, with limited room for improvisation. It seems right now it’s the same thing, only it’s Kathleen Kennedy instead of Lucas. Maybe their ship is run even tighter, because of the big money involved and the “sacredness” of the franchise. It will be interesting to see how Rian Johnson handles this. Even if he’s written the script I’m sure it has to go through Kennedy and Kasdan for approval and I’m sure that they had lots of input. Kathleen Kennedy is no slouch. She’s been Spielberg’s producer for years at Amblin and did a great job. This is her baby now and she’s calling the shots.

  • Nick P.

    I still don’t understand why JJ Abrams is not directing? He said over and over again that it was his “dream since” he was a kid……so he doesn’t give a shit anymore?

  • Paul

    His dream since a kid to do what? Direct a Star Wars movie? He already did that.

  • Nick P.

    As someone who is a fan of things, I assume his dream WAS NOT to direct one SW movie and than never have anything to do with the franchise ever again for the rest of his SW-loving life…..

  • Jeff

    JJ has been on record saying that he only wished to make one Star Wars movie. I will see if I can find the transcript. Thought this was common knowledge at this point.

    Basically, if you can follow, he sees TFA as his one stamp on the series and that basically means that he is not going to make another because that would be unethical as an artist.

    If you can think of it like this, it would be like if Michelangelo after painting the Sistine Chapel in Europe would have then just made an exact duplicate of it somewhere else. Does that make sense? I will try to find the exact quote…

  • He’s a producer on it. He pretty clearly prefers being a studio head to directing.

  • 9No

    @Jeff So what’s your opinion, now that it’s official he will return for episode 9?