Blank Check with Griffin & David - Here Today Gone Trevorrow - An Emergency Minisode

Episode Date: September 7, 2017

In a special bonus emergency minisode, Griffin and David call in remotely to weigh in/celebrate the firing of director Colin Trevorrow from Star Wars: Episode IX. But are the reports true that Colin is a bit arrogant? Did Kathleen Kennedy see The Book of Henry and not like it? Should director Rian Johnson continue to helm the wheel? Together they discuss TC-14, Griffin’s IMDB trivia, The Judge 2 and more.

🎵 🎵 Hello, Blankies. Welcome to an emergency mini-sode. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I am Griffin Newman. I'm David Sims. Now, usually this is a podcast about filmographies, directors who experienced early success and are given a series of blank checks. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. And today a check has bounced. Dramatically. Although actually I think

he's going to cash a check to be fair. I think he's been cashing checks for the last 18 months on the preparatory work he's done on this project. Yeah, there's been a few checks cashed. I think so. I think he has made more money for not working on this movie than you or I will ever make in our entire careers. That,

that is for sure. Correct. He probably makes more money going to some meeting than I will ever make in my entire career. This episode is called here today gone trevorrow uh is that actually how you say his name or is it trevorrow is it trevorrow i actually have no idea i've i've heard it both ways i've always said it trevorrow but i'm now changing my pronunciation in order to make that joke land and i think it landed so beautifully.

I think so too. J.D. Amato, past and future guest friend of the show, suggested that we call the episode Trevorrow Never Comes, but I think that we can save that name for Colin Trevorrow's sex tape. Yeah, that, oh God, that's a little too like elegaic for me. You know, that's sort of a nice poetic title. This is not a poetic time for Colin Trevorrow. Yes. Ding dong, the witch is dead. Colin Trevorrow is no longer directing Star Wars episode nine.

Now, go on. I mean, you and I have talked star wars a couple times on this podcast we've talked colin t before we've talked colin t we've talked about his great works especially his most recent great work the book of henry his magnum opus i mean i think the film that really he opened his heart and showed us everything he had inside yeah that is true and more yes it was extra he gave us some extra yeah he's been pretty extra recently and now he is uh extra he's extra necessary i.e like they don't need him he is extra he is now like i can't i can't complete this metaphor help help me out here i i'm i can't look these these are extraordinary times i i i'm in shock you know i feel like right now it falls upon us to act as as

walter cronkite did on the night of the jfk assassination you know yeah solemnly remove our glasses mop our brows yes i mean we are not the ones breaking this news but i i think it's a chaotic time and people don't know what to think and we are here to try to make sense of this i mean i feel great about it i don't know about you think. And we are here to try to make sense of this. I mean, I feel great about it. I don't know about you. I feel great. I'm in a really good mood. I'm really happy.

I know. I know. It's sort of, you know, it's that like, that's sort of like, usually when something like this happens, you have those mixed emotions where you're like,

Oh, you know, the guy's losing his job and you know, no one ever wants to like root for someone to get fired or whatever. But with this, I'm like, look, I'm sure he's making money anyway.

I'm sure they're considering him a sunk cost. And he was going to be the director of Episode IX. It's just simply unacceptable. Now, I've heard people say, you know what? I was fine with him directing it. I was resigned to Episode IX being mediocre because that's the way the other trilogy worked. Sure, Return of the Jedi. No one

ever remembers the name of that Richard Marquand anyway. Who cares? He'll be on a tight leash. These were all the arguments. Right, okay. Here are three counter-arguments to that. Two, I would be astonished if Colin Trevorrow were capable of producing a Return of the Jedi.

Batting at that level, right? B, you still had Lucas at full strength overseeing everything at that point. You have Kathy Kennedy who's like directing all the traffic, but she's not the brain source in that kind of way. And three, don't we want a better world than the world that existed before us? Don't we want society to progress and evolve? Shouldn't we complete a trilogy successfully? Why must we redo the sins of the past the mistakes of our forefathers let's let's exactly let's try and give this to a nice uh good filmmaker yes now now this is the big

question who should take over at the time we're recording this a couple days after the news broke there have been a stunning lack of leaks because i feel like very quickly after the Lord and Miller firing, Howard was thrown out his name. They had their shortlist right away. You were starting to get reports of what went wrong there. And we still haven't heard much other than Kathy Kennedy probably saw a book of Henry. Well, let me backtrack and tell you what i've been reading on the the gossip blogs because i feel like this is crucial to why maybe we don't have a short list so okay you know a couple months ago well yeah we know all the other kathleen connie fired the directors of han solo

like you mentioned you know she's not been afraid to throw the baby out with the bathwater if she thinks it's for the vision she has. As Mike Ryan tweeted, there have now been more former Star Wars directors than successful Star Wars directors. That is essentially accurate, yes. You've got Trevorrow. He was hired

to direct Episode IX practically a year and a half ago, right? At the same time as they hired Rian Johnson, pretty much. to direct episode nine practically like like a year and a half ago right like you know at the same time as they hired ryan johnson pretty much more like a year at least yeah like a long time ago so then the book of henry comes out far away exactly uh then the book of henry comes out it's a critical disaster uh it's certainly there's a lot of hubris on all sides there because Colin Trevorrow seems a little blindsided by it. Right. We do our episode.

We dunk on him hardcore. It's even more embarrassing because we have the final word on everything. Exactly. Slam dunk the funk, you know, and all that. And Booker Henry, you know, on balance, bad movie. Yes. Yes, agreed. The worst. What I'm reading

in the, especially there's this Vulture piece that hit today, written by Chris Lee, that seems to suggest that Colin Trevorrow, and this is Chris Lee's words, not mine, is a slightly arrogant man. Interesting. I don't mean to blow the doors off here

but the Colin Trevorrow after making one indie movie and then getting hired to make Jurassic World has a somewhat inflated opinion of himself as a filmmaker interesting I'm just letting all of this settle in because I know it's something that none of us

could have ever considered. No, never. Because he was blessed by Steven Spielberg, you know, with the Jurassic World hiring, and he was blessed by other big shots like Brad Bird, who sort of apparently recommended him for the Star Wars gig. Because of all that, he had his idea of whatever Episode IX was going to be. Because of all that, he had his idea of whatever Episode IX was going to be. And he was running with that, very, very confident of himself. And it sounds like Kathleen Kennedy was incredibly not confident about his idea for Episode IX. Now, about a month ago, they brought on a new writer to take over the script.

Yes, Jack Thorne. Yes. Because he had previously been in charge of writing. Exactly. Him and his partner, Derek Connelly or whatever his name is. Is that his name? Right. Screenwriter of Monster Trucks.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, maybe it was because they had a Creech centric episode nine. I don't know the details of what his pitch were, but yeah. And we know at this point that Erica is not ready to meet Creech. Those lessons have been learned. America proved that it was not ready.

Maybe Colin Trevor thought it would be ready in 2019. I can't tell you for sure. And so he's got this story pitch that clearly, right, they're rejecting it. They're like, we're going to bring in a new writer. And it does seem something came to a head. And Kathleen Kennedy was like, you got to go. Did you read this Vulture

piece? I did not. I will read it as soon as this episode is done, which is the wrong time to do it in relation to this episode. I just want to read you the last line of it please do a lot of these guys got very rich very fast and believed a lot of their own hype and they don't play by the rules they want to do shit differently and kathleen kennedy isn't going to fuck around with that so there you go. So in charge,

I don't know. I feel like, well, the rumor or whatever, the thing people seem to be sort of whispering is like, why not just keep around Rian Johnson? Seems like everyone's pretty happy with Episode 8. That all seemed to go smoothly. I agree. Right.

By all accounts, that has been the only Star Wars movie produced without a completely dramatic development and production right yes correct a i'd say let him keep driving the car no need to to take new shifts you know on the road trip but uh would you say let him keep driving the speeder yes i would let him keep driving the speeder right yeah um I would. Let him keep driving the speeder. Right. B, I would say, it's a weird position now, but I wouldn't wish a Star Wars movie upon my favorite filmmakers

anymore. It's a bit of a poison chalice. It's true. Everyone immediately takes to Twitter and they pick their favorite ever director, essentially. Or maybe some young up- coming star and they're like, they should do it. And it's like,

clearly there is a lot of thought about how this plane should be landed. And Kathleen Kennedy is the primary auteur of like, you know, what star Wars is going to look like. So I don't know. Yeah. If you really want to waste the, you know,

feature debut of some big director you love, or, you know, like the blockbuster debut, I mean, on this, they're just going to get swallowed whole. Right.

Or even worse, like waste them not working on another movie because they spend nine months in development on a Star Wars movie and then get pushed off of it. Right. Or they get like, you know, pushed aside while recuts happen or whatever. Right. off of it. Right, or they get pushed aside while recuts happen or whatever.

Right, any of that. If Rian Johnson seems to have figured out how to work within this system successfully, which by all accounts he has, and the movie itself is really strong and represents his own sensibility and his own perspectives as a filmmaker,

then let him make every single Star Wars movie yeah exactly I mean like just hand it over to him if he wants to do it he may not forever I mean you know he tweeted a month ago I will make as many Star Wars movies as they let me make I've had a great time working on this

I wonder and I don't mean to say anything but I wonder if Ryan maybe felt anything in the earth you know he heard some trembles a disturbance in the force you're saying yes how did I yes exactly because the other

obvious answer was would they circle back around to J.J. Abrams and J.J. has like conclusively said like I did my Star Wars movie. I don't want to do it. Right. Yeah. And it's a trying thing. And he has a family that he's obviously very intent on being around as much as possible.

And Episode 7 took him away from them. So yeah, he doesn't want to do it. Forget him. But clearly, yes, they want a steady hand. They want some sort of practice experienced hand at the tiller. Do you have anyone in particular you'd love for this? Like, you know, Brad Bird's busy, like the original sort of choice for this. Like, who are we going to have?

I mean, my answer is, like, my list begins and ends with Rian Johnson. Like, honestly. There you go. Wow. One endorsement. I mean, I see the other people who are thrown out and I love the idea of in my mind's eye, them being able to make that movie successfully. But I don't have any faith in that being able to happen. You know, I mean, I guess the second best option is like Ava DuVernay has been very vocal about her fandom of Star Wars and how much she'd love to make one.

She just made a big sci-fi movie for Disney. Is that movie is good. They're happy with that. What were you going to say? Go ahead. Go ahead. No, she just feels like this sort of easy option for people to sort of go to.

Right. Because again, she's this up and coming. I don't know. She really want to make this movie. It just, it feels like a nightmare. If you were to do Renee worked in PR for years,

she knows how this shit works. Like she knows what a mess it is and also remember she was the first choice of blank black panther she met with them and said this is what i'd want to do they said this is what not what we do at marvel and she left and decided to make her own like original blockbuster you know adapt a thing that wasn't part of a franchise yeah but she made it with disney right yeah but she is in the disney home right now like she made she's making disney's big march release next year which is why i think people keep banning her now and is a vocal fan of star wars well look i think two things are gonna happen like one of the other right something like the han solo thing where like three weeks from now, we see like a short list,

you know, like, and like Robert Zemeckis is on it or whatever, you know, like some sort of like very established, uh, old school Spielberg generation guy like Ron Howard was, you know,

right. Exactly. And then maybe some other names or whatever. And they pick from that or we don't hear a lot. And then they're just like, Ryan Johnson did a great job or maybe even the last Jedi comes out and it, you know, whatever does well.

And they're like, like episode eight looks great. Episode nine is going to be by the same guy. Like nothing to see here, folks. That's kind of my prediction. I mean, right now I think they have episode 9 scheduled for

May of that year because they've made this May shift I think they push it back to December and I think they quietly announce you know in order to work around Rian Johnson's prep schedule for Last Jedi and they just let him continue driving the car

because you know as we know and it's very sad, Carrie Fisher died, and they were all pretty clear about, like, we had a rough idea of where Episode 9 was going to end, and how the arcs were going to regress, and now that's going to have to be different.

So there's definitely, like, someone needs to come in and write Star Wars Episode 9. Like, be it Rian Johnson or someone else. That job has not been completed. It's not like they have it ready, the script is ready, and it's like we just need a solid hand to come in here and get

everything done. Like how Return of the Jedi sort of worked. George Lucas was like, I know what the movie is, someone here, and someone just come in and direct it. Because they've been all pretty clear that as much as there was a master design for these three movies, the idea was seven is Han's movie, eight is Luke's movie, nine is Leia's movie. It does seem that way. So that's a bummer. It's a major, major bummer.

But Colin Trevorrow not making episode 9 is a major success. Yep, we won. You're welcome. He's gonna kill us. No, he's not. He doesn't know who we are. I mean, I'll say I've always been worried a little bit about how much

I shit talk him. You do. You like to make fun of him. I do, and I do it publicly and I do it loudly and I do talk him. You do. You do like to make fun of him. I do. And I do it publicly and I do it loudly and I do it frequently. Yeah. And he was still in a position, right, of directing a massive, massive movie. He still had that career cachet, right? Yeah. And I went into my manager's office the day the news broke because I had to self-tape an audition and they said like hey you must be excited about that uh Colin Trevorrow news huh and I was like oh no one is worried about the ramifications of me talking negatively about him anymore I mean he's at a low ebb right

now yes I did this whole six-week press tour for the tech which ended with me in australia at night doing phoner interviews with people in india and the final question i had on the final interview at the end of the six weeks was uh you've been very outspoken in your hatred of colin trevor can you tell us what's behind that who is that who asked that they must listen to the podcast they must they must they have to that's where you do most of your i know you like tweet about it what's behind that. Who is that? Who asked that? They must listen to the podcast. They must. They must. They have to. That's where you do most of your... I know you tweet about it occasionally,

but come on. That's a blank check, man. I believe some blankies also included that as a trivia fact on my IMDb page. Oh, so maybe they were just reading right off of your

Wikipedia or IMDb or whatever. It might be. Also on Wikipedia, I'm listed as being marriedDb or whatever. It might be also on Wikipedia. I'm listed as being married to TC 14. Thank you very much for that. Oh, that I shit. I was actually going to bring that up. I think that's,

you know, especially a lot of people have said, uh, you know, a woman has never made a star Wars movie. Uh, and that's something that needs to change. TC 14 has been steeped in star Wars for a very long time.

We've never seen conclusive evidence that she died so she probably is still alive because that's how it always works i mean my grandma you saw how she served that tea she knows what a dead eye is she can recognize them with her own eyes i think she's a pretty logical choice i'm sorry no she's a pretty logical choice. Sorry? No, she's a steady hand. I mean, she never dropped the T. And I also think you're right that we haven't had an actor from a Star Wars movie direct a Star Wars movie.

But of course, who would know the inner workings of a Star Wars shoot better than someone who's quietly been on the inside for 20 years. If not longer. Who knows how long TC-14's really been going for. Well, it was a long time ago. Yeah, it was too far from away.

We don't know. Exactly. So, TC-14, I would say, definitely at least on my top five candidates, I just wanted to get that out there. I'm looking at my IMDb trivia page right now, and it says,

on multiple occasions, Newman has stated his personal disdain for director Colin Trevorrow and has vowed to never work with him. He considers Trevorrow to be morally bankrupt and minimally talented. So thank you to whoever wrote that. That is something you should get off of your IMDb page,

in my opinion, immediately, if not sooner. Morally bankrupt. Like, that's not the kind of thing you want any director to see. And you only have nine items of trivia. This is one of nine items.

Yeah, one of them is just the fact that you and I have a podcast together. Yeah, then another one is, three of them are the names of your family. So it's really like there's five other items. Yeah, I agree. And one of them is that you

dropped out of college and one of them is that you were fired from Mulaney. So this is like not the best IMDb trivia page I've ever seen. You might want to get your favorite kind of melon on there or something you know some nice sort of like regular facts well we all know that honeydew is the money melon but but also i like that the other the other fact is that i based my running off of the t1000 and terminated yeah that's the one good fact that and that you host blank check everything else is basically like

he dropped out of college he didn't get jobs or he has a family which like congratulations right now you know this is just an emergency minisode I think we gotta wrap this up you're in Toronto yeah we're on the phone right now I'm in Toronto at the Toronto

Film Festival I'm seeing movies I'm gonna go talk to George Clooney in like three hours. Shut up, dude. Fucking humble brag. I think we should wrap this up but I want to leave our listeners with one final plea. Okay?

For years now, I've been telling people that if you see director Colin Trevorrow on the street give him a kick in the penis. Oh boy. God, even when he's down like this, that is my exact point. I am now lifting my fat law.

I'm saying if you see Colin Trevorrow on the street, give him a pass. Guy's going through a tough time right now. Public firing. He's eating crow. I'm saying if you see Colin Trevorrow on the street, neither kick nor punch his penis.

That is my official decree. Let it not be said that the Blank Check podcast is not just and fair. Now, if I hear of any peanuts, kicks or punches,

I'm going to be very, very disappointed. Very disappointed. Yeah. And that's your final call. I think it's very, we should just call you Judge Newman from now on. So it shall be.

And, you know, if they ever make a Judge 2, you should probably be in it. Right. And then we'll do Judging the Judge Judge, Judge 2 Hyper Judge. Yeah, Judging the Judge 2

Hyper Judge, exactly. Hyper Judge Judging, Hyper Judging the Judge, colon, the Judge 2 hyper judge. Yes. I just sequel both the name of the movie

and the name of the podcast about the movie. And those, of course, are your final thoughts. Of course. That's how I wanted to end this. Oh, my God. Oh, we love you, Ben.

Yeah, this is crazy. We had a whole phone call call cross-country phone call just to talk about fucking colin trevorrow getting fired may his name never be uttered again it was an emergency mobisode and and look a mobisode minisode but maybe you're listening to it on your phone uh i i pray we never have to do it again. Exactly. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review,

subscribe. Thank you. For our social media. Oh boy. Thank you. Thank you to Lane Montgomery for our theme song, Joe Bone and Pat Reynolds for our artwork. Tune in in a couple of days for the Devil Wears Prada with my sister, Romilly Newman.

Yeah, it's going to be good. And as always. What were you going to say? I said it's going to be good, Devil Wears Prada. Oh, it's a good app. It's a good app. We got it in the can. It's a good app. Yep. And as always, may the Force be with you.