David Fincher Details Why He Wouldn’t Make a Star Wars Movie

Thanks to his compelling work directing films like The Social Network, Gone Girl and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, David Fincher‘s name is often tossed around when rumors begin to circulate about who could helm a new Star Wars film. Despite these conjectures, the filmmaker revealed to Empire that he isn’t interested in subjecting himself to the pressures of taking on such a massive project.

“I talked to [producer Kathleen Kennedy] about that and look, it’s a plum assignment,” Fincher shared of the opportunity. “I don’t know what’s worse: being George Lucas on the set of the first one where everyone’s going, ‘Alderaan? What the hell is this?’ Where everyone’s making fun, but I can’t imagine the kind of intestinal fortitude one has to have following up the success of these last two. That’s a whole other level. One is that you have to endure the withering abuse of Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, and the other is you have to live up to a billion or a billion-five, and that becomes its own kind of pressure.”

While the filmmaker has made many live-action adaptations of books, he’s never had to follow up another filmmaker by making a sequel in a franchise. The director will be breaking that trend with the upcoming World War Z 2.

“I think [The Empire Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner] had the best job,” Fincher pointed out. “He had a pretty great script and he had the middle story. He didn’t have to worry about where it started and he didn’t have to worry about where it ended. And he had the great reveal.”

Fincher adapted the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo novel in 2011, which was primed to turn into a franchise of films. His adaptation failed to connect with audiences, causing the director to back away from the series, given how much of his life he had to devote to the project.

“You’d have to really clear your head, I think,” Fincher confessed. “You’d have to really be sure this is what you wanted to do because either way it’s two years of your life, 14 hours a day, seven days a week.”

The next installment in the Star Wars series, The Last Jedi, opens in theaters December 15.

[H/T Empire]