Things aren't looking so good for Chronicle and Fantastic Four director, Josh Trank. The young filmmaker announced last night that he made a personal decision to depart the Star Wars Anthology film he's been involved with for nearly a year. Rumors had begun to surface of problems between him and Lucasfilm, exacerbated by his absence from Star Wars Celebration last month. But this isn't the first time Trank has been the subject of behind-the-scenes issues, and THR says it was a history of erratic behavior that actually got the director removed from the Star Wars project. So he didn't just quit, he was fired.
Questions about 20th Century Fox's Fantastic Four reboot swirled for months because it seemed the studio, and Trank in particular, were keeping the film a secret. It was strange when nothing was seen at Comic-Con last year, and it wasn't until recently that we got a trailer, which quieted critics to a degree. But producers apparently had great trouble getting the film completed, and that Trank was a hindrance, calling his behavior "erratic" and "very isolated", noted an inside source. That same source says Trank offered "no clear direction", and couldn't "answer questions" and stayed in hiding the whole time. That would explain the radio silence on the film for so long. It wasn't until producer/writer Simon Kinberg and Hutch Parker came into fix things that the production came together, even though Trank was sill around on set. Those reports of reshoots apparently were apparently a pretty big deal, with the most recent round coming just days ago. That does not sound good at all. There was also the issue of $100K worth of damage caused by Trank's dogs to a house the studio rented for him in New Orleans. Editor Stephen Rivkin was hired to help piece Fantastic Four together, even though Trank had already hired his Chronicle editor. All of this stuff with Trank took Kinberg and Parker away from their work on X-Men: Apocalypse, potentially impacting that production, too.
For what it's worth, Fox says they are "very happy with the movie and we can’t wait for audiences to see it," while acknowledging "bumps in the road" to getting it done. Of course they are going to say that now with the film still a few months away, but it probably means Fox will be seeking a new director for Fantastic Four 2 which is set for 2017.
All of this bad news got around to Lucasfilm when Kinberg made it clear he didn't want to work with Trank again. Kathleen Kennedy and the rest of the team decided it would be smart to go in another direction. Look, Star Wars will be fine. There's plenty of time to find a more suitable director as it isn't expected to arrive until 2018. The bigger concern is Fantastic Four, which sounds like it may be a complete clusterf**k. We'll find out when it opens on August 7th.
