Boba Fett Movie: Josh Trank Reveals Why He Left the Star Wars Project

In a lengthy profile on filmmaker Josh Trank by Polygon, details were revealed about why Trank departed the Boba Fett movie he had signed on to write and direct mere minutes before it was supposed to be announced at Star Wars Celebration 2015. In 2014, Trank, coming off the success of Chronicle, was brought on by Disney to develop a Boba Fett solo movie, although at the time we only knew of it as an untitled Star Wars spin-off project. Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy sung his praises in a public statement, saying, “He is such an incredible talent and has a great imagination and sense of innovation. That makes him perfectly suited to Star Wars.” One year later, according to Polygon’s report, word of the troubled production on Trank’s 2015 Fantastic Four movie had reached Disney and Kennedy. No one had seen a cut of the film that would go on to become one of the biggest commercial and critical flops of the year, but hearing about all of the issues involving Trank were enough to cause Kennedy to lose confidence in him. Trank explained that Kennedy and he agreed he should cancel his appearance at April’s Star Wars Celebration where he was going to share the first details of his Star Wars movie with the world. At the time, he had tweeted he had come down with the “worst flu of my life.” Days later, industry insiders reported he was fired from the project. Trank said in a personal statement that he had departed the film “to pursue some original creative opportunities.” Now, Trank claims, “I quit because I knew I was going to be fired if I didn’t quit.” Trank shared that he privately told his managers that he was done looking for work making blockbuster movies. At the time, it was a shock for a director to depart a Star Wars project in such fashion, but since then the list of would-be Star Wars filmmakers has only grown, with Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss leaving the trilogy of Star Wars movies they had signed on to develop, Phil Lord and Chirs Miller being fired from Solo during production, and Colin Trevorrow being fired from Episode IX, not to mention director Gareth Edwards being sidelined on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=star-wars-and-its-weird-recent-history-of-director-drop-outs&captions=true"] Trank has been laying low for the past several years, but recently made headlines when he decided to post a review of his own Fantastic Four movie four years after its release. He’s now gearing up for the release of Capone starring Tom Hardy, a film he wrote and directed. You can watch the new trailer for Capone below: [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/04/16/capone-official-trailer-1"] [poilib element="accentDivider"] Joshua is Senior Features Editor at IGN. If Pokemon, Green Lantern, or Game of Thrones are frequently used words in your vocabulary, you’ll want to follow him on Twitter @JoshuaYehl and IGN.