For a director whose career got off to such a strong start with Chronicle, there hasn't been a lot of faith in Josh Trank's talents since. Granted, whenever a director takes on a major project with a built-in fanbase like Fantastic Four, there's going to be a certain level of scrutiny. That's to be expected. But Trank was getting ripped for the film before a single image or trailer had been seen, and rumors of production problems flew wildly around the Internet. It didn't help that he was later fired from his Star Wars Anthology film, reportedly on the word of producer Simon Kinberg, who worked with him on Fantastic Four. Now Trank has spoken with the LA Times about the real reasons he left Star Wars, and how the issues have been spun by the media "in such a maliciously wrong way".
Trank: “If you ask anybody by name who I’ve worked with, from Simon to [producer] Hutch [Parker] or my crew or anybody else, they’d be like, ‘We’ve been working really hard on this movie and we’ve had an excellent time working together. It’s been a challenging movie – for all of the right reasons.”
The initial reports on his Star Wars exit said he was leaving to pursue original works, and Lucasfilm seemed comfortable with his decision. But then other stories surfaced that suggested Trank's demeanor on set, described by some as defensive and isolated. Trank insists the real reasons are that he simply wants out of the public view for awhile to work on something with a bit less visibility...
Trank: “I want to do something original after this because I’ve been living under public scrutiny, as you’ve seen, for the last four years of my life. And it’s not healthy for me right now in my life. I want to do something that’s below the radar.I have a great relationship with everyone at Lucasfilm and with [producer] Kari Hart. And they all understood it because this whole experience for me has been very psychologically hard.”
Kinberg chimed in and came to Trank's defense, saying "I haven’t really seen this level of vehemence against a filmmaker. And it’s surreal and unfair."
So there you have it. Maybe the lesson to be learned about all of this is to take all of these stories with a grain of salt. We forget that filmmakers are people who handle adversity in very different ways, and making a movie is a damn difficult prospect for anybody.
