There has been a great disturbance in the Force. After being attached to the project for quite some time, it has been announced that Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow has left Star Wars 9. According to Disney and Lucasfilm, the split is mutual, but as always with things like this, there could be much more to it. This comes just months after directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller were fired from work on the untitled Han Solo movie.

The news came to light in a statement released via the official StarWars.com website. As is the case with many situations like this, the reason for the director shakeup on Star Wars 9 is creative differences. As for what those exact creative differences are at the moment? It hasn't been made clear, but this is another big setback for the Disney era of Star Wars and could signify a larger problem at hand. Here's the official statement from Lucasfilm.

"Lucasfilm and Colin Trevorrow have mutually chosen to part ways on Star Wars: Episode IX. Colin has been a wonderful collaborator throughout the development process but we have all come to the conclusion that our visions for the project differ. We wish Colin the best and will be sharing more information about the film soon."

There is a lot to dissect in regards to Lucasfilm parting ways with Colin Trevorrow, but it is definitely a surprise. Trevorrow was named the director of Star Wars: Episode IX shortly after Jurassic World was released in 2015. That movie went on to become a massive financial success and most definitely was what helped secure him the gig to close out this new Star Wars trilogy. He has had the job for nearly two years now and has been developing the script and preparing the movie during that time. Considering that Star Wars 9 is expected to begin production in January, the timing is surprising. Why after two years are they moving on just months before production?

Recently, it was revealed that writer Jack Thorne, who wrote the stage play for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, was hired by Lucasfilm to do a rewrite on Star Wars 9. Previously, Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly had been working on a draft. At the time there was no indication that Trevorrow was going to leave the project, but now the hiring of Thorne to do the rewrite makes a lot more sense and it could be a much more significant rewrite than we previously anticipated.

Colin Trevorrow had a lot of success with Jurassic World, but his latest movie, The Book of Henry, as an absolute disaster critically and financially. It is possible that failure played into this decision. It is also possible that this has been known behind-the-scenes at Lucasfilm for a while now and they were just trying to not let it out until they had things straightened out with the Han Solo movie. Since Ron Howard seems to have that under control, now is as good a time as any Star Wars 9 is currently set for release on May 24, 2019. There is no word on whether or not having to find a new director will have an effect on that release date. We will be sure to keep you up to date as more information on Star Wars 9 is made available.