One of the many, many, many filmmakers to have been welcomed aboard the Star Wars franchise and then jettisoned shortly after is Colin Trevorrow, who probably didn’t lose too much sleep over it after immediately diving headfirst into Jurassic World Dominion, which currently ranks as the second highest-grossing movie of the year as it inches closer and closer to ensuring each chapter in the sequel trilogy crosses the billion-dollar threshold.
Of course, there’s a hint of irony to the director abandoning or being ditched from Episode IX (depending on who you ask), before going on to round off a three-film saga anyway, and it’s even more ironic when you consider that Trevorrow and J.J. Abrams both ended up helming the first and last entries in the most recent trio of Jurassic World and Star Wars blockbusters.
Shared symmetry aside, it’s not as though Lucasfilm is going to abandon the prospect of regular feature films set in a galaxy far, far away, despite how robust the Disney Plus slate becomes. In an interview with ComicBook, Trevorrow addressed whether or not he could be enticed back into the fold.
“I don’t know. Not because of Star Wars, but because I’ve spent eight or nine making new versions of the things we love when we were kids. You know? In one place or another. There’s not just a lot of pressure on that, but it also casts a shadow over everything else that you want to do… I made a small film after Jurassic World, and I was the ‘Director of Star Wars‘ when I made it. And I think to be able to step out of that a little bit and not having everything I do be in the context of our belief systems is interesting to me.”
Dominion scored the worst reviews in Jurassic history, and fans disliked it so much that they were voicing their opinions on how glad they were to see Trevorrow miss out on Star Wars, so it’s not as if any comeback would be greeted with universal praise.