Recently, Lucasfilm released a statement declaring that Colin Trevorrow (the filmmaker behind Jurassic World and Safety Not Guaranteed) will no longer be directing Star Wars: Episode IX. To sum it up, he's left the project due to the most common reason for someone exiting a production that isn't scheduling conflicts: creative differences. If you're even remotely tuned into the whole movie news traffic cycle, this should seem somewhat familiar. Ever since the whole Ant-Man debacle with Edgar Wright way back in mid-2014, there's been kind of a pattern of big-name directors leaving high-profile productions. This isn't even the first time this happened with the newer Star Wars flicks. Josh Trank (Chronicle, Fant4stic) and Phil Lord & Chris Miller (21 Jump Street, The Lego Movie) left for the same reasons.
Honestly, I don't see this as a huge loss because I've never had any strong opinions on Trevorrow as a filmmaker one way or the other; nevertheless, I do think there could be more to this story than simple disagreement between a studio and a director. The Book Of Henry, his latest film, has generated a significant amount of ink in the film journalism racket. Not for garnering Oscar buzz or surprising box office numbers; but rather for the exact opposite. Granted, I'll continue to reserve judgment until I've actually seen the film for myself; but, suffice it to say, the reception has been pretty ugly. So, this could be Disney/Lucasfilm severing their ties with what they see as dead weight. Now, is this certain? It's hard to say; yet, I wouldn't be shocked if this wasn't at least partially responsible for this departure. At the time of writing, the script is being rewritten by Jack Thorne (the playwright behind Harry Potter and The Cursed Child). Even with all this drama, I still think Episode IX is going to turn out just fine. We'll just have to wait and see.
No comments:
Post a Comment