If there’s one thing the year 2017 has proved, it’s that once you have a dream job it’s hard to keep the desire to do it.
Look at the job of directing your own Star Wars, a proposition literally millions of kids have dreamed about over the past forty years. In the past few years, a lucky few people have finally gotten the opportunity, and let’s look at their track record, in alphabetical order:
- J.J. Abrams, who turned the offer down multiple times, and had to be talked into doing it by everyone from Spielberg to his wife,
- Stephen Daldry, who got hired less than three weeks ago,
- Gareth Edwards, whose movie was re-edited and reshot so frequently that literally every single trailer was credited differently,
- Tony Gilroy, that reshooter and credited re-editor,
- Ron Howard, about as close a friend of the family as you can get without actually being a Wookiee,
- Rian Johnson, the perennial outlier, who’s apparently finished his movie with months to spare on great terms with all involved,
- Phil Lord and Chris Miller, whose conduct is currently a better-kept secret than the Executive Branch’s dirty laundry,
- Josh Trank, whose prospective Boba Fett movie was a bust before the name “Kylo Ren” was even revealed to the world,
and bringing up the rear, Colin Trevorrow, who’s been on the hook since mid-2015 to direct the trilogy-capping Episode IX, a film meant to be such a definitive ending that the utterly unrestrained Disney says that afterwards they’ll take a break.
For whatever reason, it was announced this afternoon that Trevorrow is the latest person to accept the job and turn it down, like almost half the names on that list.
You’ll hear more as it happens, but for now, who do we like to take over?
Personally, if we must get a white dude (and look at that list; all evidence says we must), then I’m hoping for noted indie musician and Boyega-finder Joe Cornish.
