‘Star Wars: Episode IX’ loses its director

Red Carpet Report on Mingle Media TV/Flickr

Trouble is brewing yet again at Disney and Lucasfilm. The upcoming last film to the current Star Wars trilogy just lost its director Colin Trevorrow. Disney issued a statement about the news saying, “Lucasfilm and Colin Trevorrow have mutually chosen to part ways on Star Wars: Episode IX. Colin has been a wonderful collaborator throughout the development process, but we have all come to the conclusion that our visions for the project differ. We wish Colin the best and will be sharing more information about the film soon.” The company has yet to name a replacement. According to Variety’s sources, the split was caused by differences regarding script treatment. The news comes out a month after Wonder screenwriter Jack Thorne was brought on by Disney to polish the film’s script. Trevorrow and his writing partner Derek Connolly were the ones who penned the most recent draft of the script.

Disney announced that Trevorrow was working on Episode IX back at the August 2015 D23 Expo. He was fresh off directing the hugely successful Jurassic World film. Episode IX is expected to hit theatres two years from now on May 24^th with filming expected to start early next year. Whether this news will affect the schedule, we can’t say yet. Trevorrow joins the likes of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who were booted from the Han Solo spinoff, and Fantastic Four director Josh Trank, who was supposed to direct a standalone Star Wars spinoff.

This animated short shows us what happens when BB-8 and BB-9E meet

The Mirror Match. #StarWarsBlips pic.twitter.com/Gi05f5gNBm

— Star Wars (@starwars) September 2, 2017

We’re still gushing over the appearance of BB-9E a.k.a. BB-H8 a.k.a. BB-8’s evil twin. So what happens when they meet up? A lot of curious spinning around and general adorableness. A new animated short the Star Wars team posted on social media has us wishing the two starred in their own show. You can see BB-8 turn on his curious meter to high and just bug the heck out of BB-9E, it’s cute. You can watch the short in the tweet below.

Source: io9

Paul Bettany joins Han Solo movie to replace Michael K. Williams

After The Wire actor Michael K. Williams had to drop out of the Han Solo spinoff movie because of scheduling conflict, it looks like the role itself isn’t being cut but is instead being recast. A recent tweet from the film’s director Ron Howard suggests Paul Bettany might be taking over the role (it was later confirmed by the director in a follow-up tweet). Although, we know it’s not the exact same role. According to SlashFilm, while Bettany will play a character Williams was supposed to play, the character will now be human instead of a motion-capture alien. A Deadline story also claims it might be an entirely new character but will serve the same function as Williams’s character. At the moment we can only speculate what the character will be like. Howard and Bettany have previously worked together on A Beautiful Mind and The Da Vinci Code.

With the movie going through reshoots now after the original directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller got fired, we’re hoping there isn’t any more controversy surrounding this rather beleaguered production. This might also not be the last time we see Williams in a Lucasfilm production. He expressed no bitterness over the changes and won’t say that this might be the final time we’d see him (or not see him, in this case). The untitled film is set to hit theatres in May 2018.

Mark Hamill teases Luke Skywalker’s look and big change for ‘The Last Jedi’

It’s been so long since we’ve last seen Luke Skywalker. Sure we saw a bit of him at the end of The Force Awakens but that brief encounter doesn’t really tell us anything. A new cover for a magazine featuring Mark Hamill as the iconic Skywalker gives us a glimpse of a changed man. Luke in an all-black ensemble with red light shining on him has people talking about the lengths the Jedi Knight has changed.

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