Star Wars IX Seeking New Director

The Star Wars franchise director problems continue as director Colin Trevorrow (Jurassic World) has left Star Wars: Episode IX. "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," read a Lucasfilm statement.

The movie is currently in the scripting, pre-production design phase so best guess is just too many arguments between Lucasfilm and Trevorrow on the tone, story, and look and feel of the movie. Trevorrow showed he can play in others playground and build on what came before with Jurassic World so can't help but wonder exactly what happened to indicate that wasn't possible here. One theory is that Lucasfilm lost confidence in him after the commercial failure of The Book of Henry (which suffered from a horrible script and lazy ending) but that strikes me as unlikely as that film was never high on anyone's radar to begin with. Apparently some of the problems could be with the script as Jack Thorne (Wonder) was hired last month to give the Episode IX another pass.

This is the fourth director to be replaced in that last two years with JJ Abrams and soon Rian Johnson (The Last Jedi) to emerge unscathed from Lucasfilm desire to get director's with new takes while not really wanting them to bring any new takes to the table. Gareth Edwards was effectively replaced on Rogue One by Tony Gilroy. Josh Trank was fired from a potential Boba Fett film that has now been indefinitely tabled for rumors of being extremely indecisive (an absolute no-no for any director since their day is nothing but decision making) on the Fantastic Four movie which eventually bombed spectacularly. The final two was Phil Lord and Chris Miller being replaced by Ron Howard on the Han Solo film near the end of principle photography due to conflicts with Lawrence Kasdan (Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi) along with entirely to much improv for what is not supposed to be a pure comedy film. Basically there is not true pattern to the firings except it seems that maybe Lucasfilm is following one hit wonder directors a little to much instead of waiting until they have a few hits under their belt. Ultimately they really want directors that are use to merging their vision (or compromising depending on point of view) with the studio's vision and that is something that comes with experience.

A rumor has already emerged that Rian Johnson is being considered as the replacement director which is possible but I imagine Lucasfilm would want to see how The Last Jedi does first. Regardless without a script the director position can wait a little while. ILM can work on pre-production designs without a director but it will mean redoing things once one is picked as the first thing a new boss always wants to do is add their stamp to things whether it needs it or not so any designs they come up with, no matter how good, will get notes on things to change by the new director. From a fan perspective it doesn't mean a thing as this occurred early enough in the film-making process to have no impact on the release date for Episode IX and likely no real impact on the already planned conclusion to the current trilogy.