The Rise of Skywalker has had some serious behind the scenes drama over the past few years which is par for the course when it comes to the Star Wars franchise since the Disney acquisition.
Also read: Benioff and Weiss Exit Star Wars Trilogy
Colin Treverrow, of Jurassic World fame, was set to direct and write the 9th and final film of what is now referred to as the Skywalker Saga. In September of 2018, it was revealed that Trevorrow and Lucasfilm had parted ways due to what was mainly creative differences. This also came after the Trevorrow’s pet project, The Book of Henry, which didn’t do very well commercially.
Now according to Collider, almost two years later the WGA, the Writer’s Guild of America, has decided that Trevorrow and his original co-writer, Derek Connolly will receive story credits for Rise of Skywalker. They will receive story credit as Derek Connolly & Colin Trevorrow as will Chris Terrio & J.J. Abrams as shown here. However, the latter will still both receive sole screenplay credit.
This new information directly flies in the face of what Abrams had originally stated when he first signed up to direct Episode 9. In an interview with Fast Company, he said that had to basically start from scratch, which involves coming up with a story and writing a screenplay for Episode 9.
This raises many questions about how much Abrams has included in his script from the original Trevorrow storyline. It actually sounds similar to the time after Justice League when Zack Snyder had left the project and Joss Whedon was trying to fulfil the studio vision.
Whedon ended up only getting writing credit while Snyder got the sole directing credit for Justice League. After having seen the film, the truth of who did what was very evident.
Until this revelation from the WGA about getting story credit, Trevorrow’s only real influence on the franchise had been in the design of a ship at the Star Wars theme park, Galaxy’s Edge. The ship was supposed to originally appear in Trevorrow’s Episode IX which never came to fruition.
Only time will tell about how much influence Trevorrow has had on the Rise of Skywalker. It may even be a couple of years until the world finds out what Trevorrow really brought to the table.
