It looks like Colin Trevorrow is bulletproof.
According to Steven Spielberg, Trevorrow is confirmed as the co-writer and director of the third installment of the ‘Jurassic World’ trilogy. While Trevorrow led “Jurassic World” to a massive box office in 2015, the filmmaker has since been fired from ‘Star Wars’ and released a film that was met with decidedly mixed-at-best reviews. But yet, here he is getting his welcomed back to the franchise with open arms.
“Colin Trevorrow is going write and direct the third Jurassic World story,” executive producer Steven Spielberg said to Entertainment Weekly.
Trevorrow’s first foray into the world of dino action, “Jurassic World,” was an incredible success for Universal, when it was released in 2015. With one of the biggest opening weekends of all time and over $1.6 billion grossed worldwide, it’s clear that signing Trevorrow for a third film makes sense, at least on paper. However, there’s more to this story that might illuminate why this hiring is a little odd.
READ MORE: The Good, The Bad & The Weird Of ‘Jurassic World’
After “Jurassic World’s” success, Trevorrow quickly signed on to write and direct “Star Wars: Episode IX.” Then, after months of working on the script and pre-production, he was unceremoniously booted from the production. Lucasfilm said, at the time, “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.”
The official word was quickly followed up with an anonymous Lucasfilm exec, who reportedly said, “When the reviews for ‘Book of Henry‘ came out, there was immediately conjecture that Kathy was going to dump him because they weren’t thrilled with working with him anyway. He’s a difficult guy. He’s really, really, really confident. Let’s call it that.”
“The Book of Henry” is only Trevorrow’s third feature film. His first film, “Safety Not Guaranteed,” was pretty well-received, and earned him his next job, the aforementioned “Jurassic World.” But ‘Henry’ was supposedly Trevorrow’s passion project, and frankly, it’s not a great film. In our review, we called the film “odd” and “off-putting,” while other reviews have used the terms “catastrophically awful,” “deliriously bad,” and “a unique kind of terrible.” Currently, ‘Henry’ has a 20% on Rotten Tomatoes.
None of this is meant to somehow blame Trevorrow for taking “Jurassic World 3.” He has every right to take a job that is offered to him. The real concern is which Trevorrow will audiences get? The guy who launched a new franchise and earned over a billion dollars, or the one that thought ‘Book of Henry’ was worthy of the big screen?
Either way, Trevorrow is clearly one of the smartest guys in Hollywood because he has figured out how to turn getting fired, and subsequently releasing a not-so-great film, into being welcomed back with open arms to a multi-billion dollar franchise. For that, we have nothing but respect.