Josh Trank talks Star Wars exit: "people get so excited to raise their pitchforks"

Ever since Josh Trank's sudden departure from the second Star Wars Anthology film, the rumour mill has been in overdrive as to just why he left the project. Trank's supposed difficulty to work with has repeatedly been cited, moving the director to defend himself in an interview with the LA Times.

"At first I was like, ‘I’m just not going to say anything because it will blow over. But I was shocked – it just hasn’t blown over. People get so excited to raise their pitchforks. I knew that this was going to be questioned and it was going to come under skepticism as to why I left Star Wars. And it was hard. It was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make in my life."

"It feels sometimes like I’m living in a Paddy Chayefsky script or something like that," says Trank, in reference to the American satirist. "Every misconception that could possibly be made about this has been made to a hilariously satirical degree. And it’s people who haven’t met me before. If they met me – I don’t know, I feel like I’m a pretty harmless person."

And understandably, it sounds like it will be a while before Trank goes near a major franchise movie again. "I want to do something original after this because I’ve been living under public scrutiny, as you’ve seen, for the last four years of my life," he says. "And it’s not healthy for me right now in my life. I want to do something that’s below the radar."

All of which sounds fair enough. Trank's next over the radar release will be Fantastic Four, which opens in the UK on 6 August 2015 and the US the following day.

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