This is why Fight Club director turned down Star Wars

Justin Harp
Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

From Digital Spy

Academy Award-winning filmmaker David Fincher is probably on many Star Wars fans' wish lists to direct one of the franchise's movies, but chances of it happening are slim.

The revival of Star Wars has sometimes been a rocky road for its directors. After all, Lucasfilm was forced to turn to safe and stable options like J.J. Abrams and Ron Howard when filmmakers like Josh Trank and Colin Trevorrow dropped out during pre-production - or during production, in the case of Solo: A Star Wars Story's original directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

It's therefore safe to assume that creative freedom for directors is limited on a Star Wars movie. That seems to be why Girl with the Dragon Tattoo filmmaker David Fincher turned down working with Lucasfilm.

"I talked to [producer Kathleen Kennedy] about that and look, it's a plum assignment," he told Empire. "I don't know what's worse: being George Lucas on the set of the first one where everyone's going, 'Alderaan? What the hell is this?'

"Where everyone's making fun, but I can't imagine the kind of intestinal fortitude one has to have following up the success of these last two. That's a whole other level. One is that you have to endure the withering abuse of Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, and the other is you have to live up to a billion or a billion-five, and that becomes its own kind of pressure.

Photo credit: Ernesto Ruscio / Getty Images
Photo credit: Ernesto Ruscio / Getty Images

"I think [The Empire Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner] had the best job. He had a pretty great script and he had the middle story. He didn't have to worry about where it started and he didn't have to worry about where it ended. And he had the great reveal.

"You'd have to really clear your head, I think. You'd have to really be sure this is what you wanted to do because either way it's two years of your life, 14 hours a day, seven days a week."

So while it seems our dream of a Star Wars movie with Fight Club aesthetic won't happen, perhaps it's all for the best…

Fincher's new earth-bound Netflix series Mindhunter is streaming now worldwide.

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