Having made the fourth most successful film of all-time in the shape of Jurassic World, writer-director Colin Trevorrow took a break from blockbuster moviemaking to craft the more modest Book of Henry. But now he’s getting back on the big-budget horse to shoot Star Wars: Episode IX.
He’s also been busy co-scripting dino-sequel Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, which will be helmed by A Monster Calls director J.A. Bayona. So we asked Trevorrow what lessons he learned on the first dinosaur movie that he has taken into the sequel, and that he’ll be using on Episode IX.
Collaborative Process
“I think what I learned on Jurassic World is the same thing I applied to Jurassic World 2” Trevorrow explained. “I know how hard it is to direct one of those movies. I know how much of your brainwaves it takes up at any given moment. So I wanted to provide [director] J.A. Bayona with somebody there who could be thinking solely about the screenplay the entire time, and that person was me.
“And I’m going to have someone else on Star Wars who will be able to be that writer thinking about the characters and the narrative at all times so that I’m not relying solely on myself. It is such a collaborative process on all of these movies.
“It’s something that I learned in film school and something that has been re-enforced time and time and time again. Surrounding myself with different perspectives – people who can look at something and say ‘Wait a minute!’ That matters and I’ve done that more and more with every film that I’ve worked on.”
The Book of Henry is in cinemas now, while Star Wars: Episode IX is set to his screens June 2019.