Dagobah Day is a new recurring opinion piece / news post on all things Star Wars. This time on Dagobah, I go over the curious case of director Josh Trank. Was he fired?
I have a bad feeling about this — So, something is clearly up with director Josh Trank. On the previous edition of Dagobah Day, I shrugged his no-show at SWCA off as him simply being ill, which he actually did tweet that he was. Now, I, initially, chose to believe him. But, now, Josh Trank apparently is no longer doing a Star Wars Anthology Film.
Right. So, Josh Trank directed Chronicle, a great low-budget superhero-film. I absolutely loved the movie, and I also, initally, loved the choice of Josh Trank as the director of Fantastic Four. But then something strange happened. Not only did we start hearing troubling things about the Fox superhero film in terms of plot (which I noted back in January), but we also started to hear rumblings of behind-the-scenes drama.
Reportedly, crewmen, or folks in the know, started saying that Josh Trank was showing up late on set, and at times he was even “high” – apparently Trank treated “the crew terribly”, and trashed “the house the production company rented for him.”
We did eventually see a couple of trailers for the film, one of which was quite generic. But it obviously didn’t look as bad as the reported drama make it seem. However, then this odd thing happened at SWCA. He was supposed to do a panel with Gareth Edwards, but he was a no-show. They said he was ill, he said he had the flu. Not many truly believed it, though. If you knew about the Fantastic Four problems, then you automatically would start to speculate about what had happened.
Look, Fantastic Four isn’t doomed (pun intended), but you can’t blame anyone for thinking that it is. At least, not anymore. It is totally understandable to assume that Trank was fired, if you base this assumption on these rumors and the untimely nature of his no-show. This may all be nothing. Perhaps Josh Trank is being treated unfairly. But The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that he was fired, they’re reporting that all the rumors are true. They are even reporting that Simon Kinberg, producer of both the Trank Star Wars Spin-off and Fantastic Four, had voiced his displeasure to Lucasfilm.
Rumors are just rumors, sources can be wrong. But one thing’s for sure, studios are going to believe parts of this. He might’ve already pissed off Disney and Fox – and I doubt anyone would be willing to give him another franchise anytime soon.
Still though – I’m certain Disney, Lucasfilm, and Kathleen Kennedy are going to find a great director for the second Anthology Film. I’m thinking Alex Garland, Damien Chazelle, or Matthew Vaughn.
If you have anything you want me to write about, then tweet me @ImJeffreyRex or leave a comment!
– I’m Jeffrey Rex
I'm Jeffrey Rex 