Star Wars: Moving Past Denials, Directors Start to Duck the Question

With a writer named and the film officially in pre-production, it’s widely assumed that by now, Disney and Lucasfilm have started talking on some level with directors who might be a fit for Star Wars Episode VII.Rumors abound regarding the film–its cast, its plot, what characters will or won’t be coming back and whether they’ll be dying, or returning from the dead. No discussion is more active, though, than the question of who will direct the film.And, for the most part, directors contacted so far have either denied involvement outright, expressed disinterest or claimed ignorance, saying that they’ve heard absolutely nothing and have certainly not been contacted. A few conversations that have gone on in the last twenty-four hours or so, though, seem to have a little more leeway.During a podcast interview transcribed by Slashfilm, Safety Not Guaranteed director Colin Trevorrow waxed intellectual about what the film means to him as a Star Wars fan, but his phraseology has struck some fans as the kind of thing “a guy who knows something” would say.”I have very little to say about it,” said Trevorrow. “Certainly, no specifics about what’s going on behind the scenes in the selection of that person [a director]. I think that I can speak as a Star Wars fan, which is important to me. Whoever does do this movie, I think, just needs to have a fundamental understanding of why it’s important to us. We come from a generation who grew up with this as children, to us it’s almost a belief system. It’s harder for people who are older or who were already teenagers when the movie came out to understand how deeply it is our mythology. And there are a bunch of incredible directors who are up for this job… I think whoever gets it will have that fundamental understanding of why Star Wars matters so much to a billion people. It’s just incredible. So that’s all I can say about that. I’m equally excited about it.”A spotlight fell on Trevorrow after Celebuzz reported that the filmmaker had taken “early meetings” with Lucasfilm about the project; it might seem hard to believe that a candidate with no major box office successes could be considered to direct the new series, but Safety Not Guaranteed has some reviewers seeing shades of Lucas’s own THX 1138.