Simon Kinberg Helped Josh Trank Get 'Star Wars' Job; Pair Will Work Together Again

The whole backstory of the Star Wars spinoff films is a little nutty. We know there are mysterious spin-off films that'll be released between the regular saga episodes. At the beginning of the development process, Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg were announced as the writers. As speculation grew on what those films would entail (Han Solo? Boba Fett? Yoda?), one executive referred to them as origin stories. Then, out of nowhere, director Gareth Edwards and writer Gary Whitta were hired to write and direct the first spinoff for 2016 release. Star Wars fans wondered what had happened to those other two movies.

Things came slightly more into focus a few months later when Josh Trank (Chronicle) was hired for what's likely to be the second spin-off movie. At the same time that announcement happened, Trank was in Louisiana directing Fantastic Four, which is written by Simon Kinberg. It seemed likely that these two events could be linked.

When I had the chance to talk to Simon Kinberg about Star Wars, I also asked him about the situation. He obviously couldn't give even a hint of what the Star Wars spin-offs are about, but he did say he helped push Lucasfilm to hire Trank. He also cryptically teased they would work together again in the future. Read the Simon Kinberg Josh Trank Star Wars quotes below.

Here's just a snipped of our full interview with Star Wars Rebels executive producer Simon Kinberg. We'll have more soon.

/Film: Josh Trank was recently announced as a spin-off director.  You're working with him now on Fantastic Four.  Did you have a hand in making that happen?Simon Kinberg: Yeah, I did. I spoke very highly of Josh to the Lucasfilm guys. They were interested in him because he, like Rian [Johnson, director of Episode VIII] and like Gareth [Edwards, director of a 2016 spin-off], is very much that next generation filmmaker. He comes from a background of making a big movie without a big budget. Which I think is also, not that these movies...they'll have huge budgets, but the sort of the tradition that George [Lucas] started was somebody that came from making American Graffiti to making a huge science fiction movie. And so there was some of that sort of vibe I know Lucasfilm likes about these new filmmakers. But yeah, I definitely was involved in that process.Do you think you guys will be working again?

Me and Josh?

Yeah.

[Smiles] I think we will, in one form or another, be working together again.

Okay. About a year ago, a Disney executive described the spin-off movies, one of which you're writing, as origin stories. Would you say that was an accurate description of just maybe of one or two?  

I can't talk about the content of what those movies are.

***

I tried! Sorry about that. But I think this definitely suggests Trank's movie, likely the 2018 release from Disney and Lucasfilm, will be the film Kinberg was writing back in 2012.

We'll have more from Kinberg in the coming days, talking about his role on Star Wars Episode VII and Star Wars Rebels.