Rumor: Colin Trevorrow was fired from Star Wars Episode IX for being “difficult”

Lucasfilm’s sudden parting with director Colin Trevorrow earlier this week was a shock. While the official statement from Lucasfilm suggested a mutual decision to split due to creative differences, an unnamed Hollywood executive familiar with the production of Jurassic World and The Book of Henry has a different story. Requesting anonymity to protect business interests, the insider told Vulture that Trevorrow was let go for being a difficult and egotistical person.

The anonymous insider revealed the following:

During the making of Jurassic World, he focused a great deal of his creative energies on asserting his opinion. But because he had been personally hired by Spielberg, nobody could say, ‘You’re fired.’ Once that film went through the roof and he chose to do Henry, [Trevorrow] was unbearable. He had an egotistical point of view–and he was always asserting that.

The insider adds that Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy may have been thinking about firing Trevorrow when the multitude of bad reviews came in for The Book of Henry. “He’s a difficult guy,” the insider added. “He’s really, really, really confident. Let’s call it that.”

Kennedy is an eight-time Academy Award nominee and has decades of experience going all the way back to E.T. If Trevorrow rubbed her the wrong way like Lord and Miller did while making the Han Solo movie, it’s no wonder he got nixed. Making cruddy movies doesn’t help either.

Here’s how a different unnamed producer who’s worked with Kennedy puts it:

There’s one gatekeeper when it comes to Star Wars and it’s Kathleen Kennedy. If you rub Kathleen Kennedy the wrong way–in any way–you’re out. You’re done. A lot of these young, new directors want to come in and say, ‘I want to do this. I want to do that.’ A lot of these guys–Lord and Miller, Colin Trevorrow–got very rich, very fast and believed a lot of their own hype. And they don’t want to play by the rules. They want to do shit differently. And Kathleen Kennedy isn’t going to fuck around with that.

At this point, Star Wars seems to be about getting good guns for hire like the MCU model, and certain directors who can’t work within that model are just a poor fit. If Lucasfilm needs help, the editors of Flixist have picked some candidates to direct Episode IX.

Also, I could send in some short films I made on Hi8 during a summer class at a community college in the summer of 2000. Just saying.