Director Colin Trevorrow breaks his silence on Star Wars Episode IX exit

Lucasfilm initially hired Jurassic World director Trevorrow to helm The Last Jedi sequel – due in cinemas December 2019 – but the filmmaker left the movie in September 2017, with a statement from the company claiming the parties had "mutually chosen to part ways".

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“I don’t want to talk too much about it because I don’t want to affect the way that fans get to see these films,” he told Empire.

“When we were kids, these movies came to us from far away. They were a gift. And the more we talk about how they’re made, the more it reveals that they’re just movies. But they’re not just movies, they’re more than that.

“Beyond that, I got the opportunity to tell a story that is a celebration of everything I believe in, I got to tell it to George Lucas and I got to tell it to Luke Skywalker [played by Mark Hamill], and those are experiences I will cherish for the rest of my life.”

As well as originally being hired to direct the upcoming Star Wars movie, Trevorrow also penned the film’s first screenplay with Jurassic World’s Derek Connolly. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’s Jack Thorne was later brought in to re-write it, but that version was also scrapped.

JJ Abrams – who directed The Force Awakens and is due to helm Episode IX – has since worked on another version of the script with Chris Terrio (Justice League).

The as-yet-untitled movie will begin shooting at the end of July – and will see outer-space BFFs John Boyega’s Finn and Daisy Ridley’s Rey reunite once more.

Star Wars Episode IX will be released in December 2019