‘Jurassic World’ director Colin Trevorrow to take on ‘Star Wars: Episode IX’

After directing this summer’s biggest box office hit, Colin Trevorrow is ready to make the jump to hyperspace.

At Disney’s D23 Expo, Walt Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horn confirmed a rumor that had been circulating for weeks in the “Star Wars” fan community: The “Jurassic World” director will take the reins of “Star Wars: Episode IX.”

With the film slated for release in 2019, shooting is still years away. But in a statement, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy said she had been interested in working with Trevorrow since seeing his first feature film, the 2012 indie “Safety Not Guaranteed.”

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“The power of that film paired with the enormous success of ‘Jurassic World’ speaks volumes about his abilities both as a storyteller and skilled filmmaker,” Kennedy said. “We are thrilled to have such an incredible talent as Colin join our family and step into the ‘Star Wars’ universe.”

For his part, Trevorrow, 38, said in a statement that getting hired to make a “Star Wars” film was “not a job or an assignment. It is a seat at a campfire, surrounded by an extraordinary group of storytellers, filmmakers, artists and craftspeople. We’ve been charged with telling new stories for a younger generation because they deserve what we all had — a mythology to call their own.”

Noting the gargantuan success of Trevorrow’s “Jurassic World,” which has grossed $1.6 billion worldwide to date, Horn noted drily, “It knocked our “Avengers” from No. 3 [on the all-time box-office chart] but we hired him anyway.”
Disney’s “Star Wars” presentation also featured the first glimpse of the first in a series of planned spinoff films, “Star Wars: Rogue One.”

But for many fans, the peak moment of the panel was the appearance onstage of Harrison Ford, who was joined by director J.J. Abrams and several of the other cast members of “Star Wars: Episode VII” and greeted with a long and thunderous standing ovation.

The “Episode VII” crew didn’t drop any new footage or news about the upcoming film. But after much-buzzed-about presentations at April’s Star Wars Celebration convention and last month’s Comic-Con, they really didn’t need to. The Force is clearly already very strong with them.

Twitter: @joshrottenberg