With Colin Trevorrow's departure from Star Wars: Episode IX, every Hollywood commentator was working overtime to try and unearth the reasons why.

What's spurred Lucasfilm's distrust in its own hires? Trevorrow's departure seemed remarkable considering it's only been a few months since the directors of the Han Solo film, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, were fired over disagreements about the film's tone, as Ron Howard stepped in to complete the film.

Although not officially booted off Rogue One, Gareth Edwards was quietly sidelined during the film's reshoots so Tony Gilroy could take over, while Josh Trank was dropped from a Star Wars anthology film following the reports of his behaviour on the set of the disastrous Fantastic Four reboot.

Vulture's inside source, an executive, claims Trevorrow was booted by Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy for a similar perception of being "difficult", as allegedly evidenced in his approach to both Jurassic World and the critically mauled The Book of Henry.

"During the making of Jurassic World, he focused a great deal of his creative energies on asserting his opinion," the insider stated. "But because he had been personally hired by Spielberg, nobody could say, ‘You’re fired.’ Once that film went through the roof and he chose to do Henry, [Trevorrow] was unbearable. He had an egotistical point of view— and he was always asserting that."

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"When the reviews for Book of Henry came out, there was immediately conjecture that Kathy was going to dump him because they weren’t thrilled with working with him anyway. He’s a difficult guy. He’s really, really, really confident. Let’s call it that."

As pointed out, the allegations are interesting when Trevorrow himself told Esquire in 2015, "Directors require a level of confidence that can border on the delusional. You have to push it right up to the edge of arrogance, but never cross the line."



Another source, a veteran movie producer, added: "There’s one gatekeeper when it comes to Star Wars and it’s Kathleen Kennedy. If you rub Kathleen Kennedy the wrong way — in any way — you’re out. You’re done. A lot of these young, new directors want to come in and say, ‘I want to do this. I want to do that.’"

"A lot of these guys — Lord and Miller, Colin Trevorrow — got very rich, very fast and believed a lot of their own hype. And they don’t want to play by the rules. They want to do sh*t differently. And Kathleen Kennedy isn’t going to f*ck around with that."

Star Wars: Episode IX hits UK cinemas 21 June 2019.