As you probably know, Disney has been rather aggressive with its plans for the Star Wars universe. Along with animated TV series Star Wars Rebels and a big-screen third film trilogy that begins with this December's Star Wars: The Force Awakens, a series of "anthology" films is also being developed to fill in the gaps on Disney's box office calendar between trilogy flicks.
Specifically, there will potentially be one to two years between the releases of episodes VII, VIII and IX. So rather than have nothing in theaters those years, Disney wants to keep the Star Wars momentum going with a collection of standalone films that fill in bits of Star Wars history and lore that we've never seen before.
The first of these is Star Wars: Rogue One, to be directed by Godzilla's Gareth Edwards. It follows the war-torn story of the Rebel squadron that stole the blueprints for the original Death Star, thus setting up the plot of the very first Star Wars movie. Rogue One releases in December of 2016.
The second film, which we know nothing about, was set to be directed by Chronicle and Fantastic Four filmmaker Josh Trank. But something between Lucasfilm and Trank has gone sideways.
In a short statement posted to StarWars.com, Trank said:
"After a year of having the incredible honor of developing with the wonderful and talented people at Lucasfilm, I'm making a personal decision to move forward on a different path. I've put a tremendous amount of thought into this, and I know deep down in my heart that I want to pursue some original creative opportunities."
It sounds very clean and sanitary, which The Hollywood Reporter throws cold water on with an inside report claiming that doubts from Disney execs lead to the parting of ways. The report states that producer Simon Kinberg — a major force within Lucasfilm's Star Wars story group, working on Rebels, Awakens and more, as well as producing Trank's Fantastic Four for Fox — wasn't happy while working on F4 with Trank.
THR also says that there were issues with Trank on-set, including erratic behavior, indecisiveness and unavailability. Kinberg soon relayed these problems to Lucasfilm and Disney, causing them to lose faith in Trank's abilities. Trank was supposed to attend Star Wars Celebration in April alongside Gareth Edwards, where the two would disclose the first details about their respective anthology movies to fans. But Trank was a no-show at the last minute, with Disney explaining that Trank was suffering from the flu.
Hey all. So, so, so sad to have missed today. Worst flu of my life. I hear it went beautifully with Gareth. Here's to next year. #SWCA
— Josh Trank (@joshuatrank) April 19, 2015
But THR believes that this illness was entirely fabricated to cover Disney asking Trank not to attend Celebration at a time when the company was considering firing him.
The search is now on for a new director to tackle the second Star Wars anthology movie.
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