Colin Trevorrow has been attached to direct Star Wars: Episode IX for a while now, and while the reviews of Trevorrow’s The Book Of Henry probably made a lot of Star Wars fans worried about how he’d handle the end of this new trilogy, LucasFilm itself didn’t seem to show any concerns. Now, though, it’s hard not to think of The Book Of Henry when The Hollywood Reporter reveals that the studio is bringing in a new writer to revise the previous draft of the script that Trevorrow and his writing partner Derek Connolly wrote. Again, LucasFilm would probably never say that it was worried about Trevorrow’s work, but this does seem to indicate that it’s not taking any chances.
The new writer is Jack Thorne, the creator or co-creator of British TV shows like The Fades, The Cast-Offs, The Last Panthers, and National Treasure. He also worked on BBC’s adaptation of His Dark Materials and the anthology series Phillip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams.
Production on Episode IX is supposed to begin in January, with the movie hitting theaters in May of 2019—at least until it inevitably gets pushed to December of 2019.