Director Josh Trank has revealed he left a Star Wars project, a film centered on Boba Fett, to avoid being fired from it.
Trank talked about the circumstances behind his departure from the Star Wars spinoff in an interview with Polygon, explaining the difficulties he had been through with his previous Hollywood experiences. "I quit because I knew I was going to be fired if I didn’t quit," he said.
Initially, Trank had cited his desire to do smaller movies as his reason for leaving. However, it seems there was more to the story: his negative experience with blockbuster filmmaking on the 2015 feature Fantastic Four inspired trepidation, and he feared similarly tumultuous behind-the-scenes circumstances for his Star Wars project. Trank left the film eleven months after being hired for it.
Trank was slated to direct one of the first two Star Wars Story spin-off movies. Earlier rumors suggested Boba Fett's movie, targeted for a 2018 release, would also star other well-known Star Wars bounty hunters like Bossk and Dengar. When Trank departed the project, the movie was placed on the back burner.
Trank took a brief hiatus from filmmaking, but his return to the camera is coming with the Al Capone drama Capone. His career moves since Fantastic Four and Boba Fett seem to be pointing to a preference for making smaller-scale films.
Meanwhile, the Boba Fett movie returned to life with reports in May 2018 that James Mangold would be helming the project. However, five months later, Lucasfilm confirmed that the project was canceled to make way for the Mandalorian TV series.