Director Josh Trank reveals why he really left the Boba Fett movie

Once upon a time, Josh Trank (Chronicle, Fantastic Four, Capone) was set to direct a Star Wars standalone movie about Boba Fett, the mysterious interstellar bounty hunter who has fascinated audiences ever since his introduction in The Empire Strikes Back. Trank was all set to talk about it at the 2015 Star Wars Celebration, but then he cancelled, claiming he had “the worst flu of my life.” Days later, it was reported that he’d left the project.

What happened? In 2014, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy was singing Trank’s praises, saying the director was “such an incredible talent and has a great imagination and sense of innovation. That makes him perfectly suited to Star Wars.”

Apparently, Kennedy had gotten cold feet after Trank’s Fantastic Four movie ended up being a commercial and critical bomb of epic proportions. So Trank was out.

The split seemed to be amicable. “After a year of having the incredible honor of developing with the wonderful and talented people at Lucasfilm, I’m making a personal decision to move forward on a different path,” Trank said in a person statement at the time. “I’ve put a tremendous amount of thought into this, and I know deep down in my heart that I want to pursue some original creative opportunities.”

"That said, the Star Wars universe has always been one of my biggest influences, and I couldn’t be more excited to witness its future alongside my millions of fellow Star Wars fans. I want to thank my friends Kathleen Kennedy, Kiri Hart, Simon Kinberg, and everyone at Lucasfilm and Disney for the amazing opportunity to have been a part of this. May the Force be with you all."

Now, Trank is coming clean about what really happened. “I quit because I knew I was going to be fired if I didn’t quit,” he told Polygon. After that experience, and the reception to Fantastic Four, he told his agents he was done making big blockbuster movies.

Trank is one of many creators who came on to the Star Wars movies only to quit or be let go. Phil Lord and Chris Miller were fired from making Solo: A Star Wars Story, Colin Trevorrow was fired from Episode IX , Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss parted ways with Lucasfilm before they could make a planned new trilogy of movies, and Rogue One director Gareth Edwards was sidelined in favor of Tony Gilroy who came in and did some extensive reshoots. And we wouldn’t be surprised if The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson’s planned Star Wars trilogy of movies doesn’t go anywhere, either.

The churn at Lucasfilm is very real. Pray for Taika Waititi.

This probably wouldn’t be such a concern if Lucasfilm had been consistently turning out fantastic Star Wars movies since Disney acquired it in 2012, but we’ve mostly had vanilla layups, give or take Rogue One and The Last Jedi. Maybe Trank should have actually been given a chance to make his Boba Fett movie. With The Mandalorian exploring the wide world of Star Wars bounty hunting, we’re guessing the project is dead in the water.

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h/t IGN, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, Vulture, The Wall Street Journal