Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. The Hollywood Reporter has an interesting scoop on their hands today. It looks like British screenwriter Jack Thorne will be doing a pass on Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly's script for Star Wars Episode IX.
Thorne might not be a famous screenwriter, but he's worked on both the big screen and small, having done the adaptations of His Dark Materials and Philip K. Dick's Electric Sheep for the BBC as well as the upcoming Jacob Tremblay-starrer Wonder (which looks a lot like a childhood remake of The Mask to me. Most of what Thorne is known for is in the adaptation realm, so coming in to do a pass on a script will fit in his wheelhouse.
Now, this isn't uncommon. I know the instinct is to come to the conclusion that Trevorrow and Connolly's script was a big failure and Disney is scrambling to fix it. That may be true, but it's also just as likely that it just needs a fresh voice on it. That happened all throughout the original and prequel trilogies. Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck did an uncredited pass on the original Star Wars, Lawrence Kasdan came in to shape Leigh Brackett's script (Thank God) and Tom Stoppard even did some rewrites on Revenge of the Sith.
I'm sure there was a thought to ask Rian Johnson to lend a hand, but I think he's going to be a little bit busy until December, which isn't going to help much with Disney's timeline on IX. That's supposed to start filming in January 2018, with Colin Trevorrow still at the helm, to make its May 2019 release date.
If the script isn't 100% there then I'm glad they're addressing it now rather than the late in the game shakeup of both Rogue One and the Han Solo flick.
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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