On May 1st, it was announced that Josh Trank would be dropping out of directing his Star Wars anthology film. Rumors flooded the internet, both on the content of the film and why Trank left. Many said he was fired due to stories that came to light about unbecoming conduct during the filming of the Fantastic Four reboot. Now, Trank and Star Wars/Fantasic Four Producer Simon Kinberg have made statements on their side of the story.
Back up a sec. Unbecoming conduct?
Yeah… there were rumors he was erratic on the set of Fantastic Four and sometimes didn’t show up when he was needed. There was also a rumor his dogs had caused up to $100,000 dollars in damage to a house he was renting in New Orleans during the production of the film. It’s worth nothing that according to Trank, the dogs in question were three pugs and a little Boston terrier… so they’d probably have to have been on some kind of designer brand of meth to conjure up that much destruction. As for the rest of the allegations, Trank denies them:
“None of those facts were true – and any of the facts that were true were spun in such a maliciously wrong way. If you ask anybody by name who I’ve worked with, from Simon to [producer] Hutch or my crew or anybody else, they’d be like, ‘We’ve been working really hard on this movie and we’ve had an excellent time working together. It’s been a challenging movie – for all the right reasons.”
So, why did he leave Star Wars?
Something that is often overlooked in fan communities is that it can often be tough on the other side of the spectrum: namely being their point of interest. Making Fantastic Four, as Trank said in his quote above, was a very challenging experience that isn’t made easier by the scrutiny of the internet:
“I wanted to do something original after this because I’ve been living under public scrutiny, as you’ve seen, for the last four years of my life. And it’s not healthy for me right now in my life. I want to do something that’s below the radar. I have a great relationship with everyone at Lucasfilm and with Kiri Hart. And they all understood it because this whole experience for me has been very psychologically hard.”
Simon Kinberg, who’s certainly seen his share of exultation and vitriol among fans, chimed in as well, “I’ve been around some version of this for a long time. This, I would say, is particularly cruel. I haven’t really seen this level of vehemence against a filmmaker. And it’s surreal and unfair.”
Are we certain this is the real story?
The simplest explanation is usually the correct one. The simple fact of the matter is that if the production of Fantastic Four was really as big of a mess as some of the rumors claim… why would Lucasfilm hire Trank in the first place?
Sure, there’s a lot of speculation because someone left the director’s chair of a Star Wars movie… which is a highly sought after job to say the least. However, it’s important to note that much of the time all we have to go off of is rumors and hearsay. At the end of the day, all we want is a good Star Wars movie. Hopefully, that’s what we’ll get in 2018.
As for now, all we know is that the film may be a film about a young Boba Fett and Han Solo. We’ll update you the minute we hear more.
