With the marketing campaign getting underway for the eighth installment in the franchise with Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Lucasfilm has put another spanner in the public relations works with the announcement that Colin Trevorrow has departed the directorial duties for the untitled ninth installment that’s set to bring the Skywalker story to a close. The news comes after Chris Miller and Phil Lord departed the Han Solo film earlier this summer with Ron Howard stepping in to finish the production on it and just as Rian Johnson is moving forward into the big push to get The Last Jedi out the door and hit the extensive marketing circuit for it around the world.
The statement put out by Lucasfilm is straightforward with, “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.”
With a May 24th, 2019 release date set for it, the move to bring in a new director and coming on top of the news of rewrites to the script that Trevorrow and his co-writer put in on it in the works, there are a number of areas that they can go. The one that gives me the most hope is that there’s word that Rian Johnson may be sought to take on the chair, which for many based on how everything has gone so far with a quiet production, strong words of praise from cast and crew, and a tight relationship with Carrie Fisher that seems to have bonded him even more to the property would make for an ideal choice – provided the movie is, you know, good. Which based on his past work before this has us believing is almost a slam dunk.
