There has been a lot of big Star Wars news happening as of late. With Chris Miller and Phil Lord becoming the new directors of the just-confirmed untitled Young Han Solo Film, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens panel happening tonight at San Diego Comic-Con, you can surely expect a new big announcements since it has been widely reported that there won’t be any new footage shown from the film. (It’s likely that Disney would probably much rather show footage at their own D23 Expo than anywhere else.)

One of the early bits of news is more of a rumor, but it is a pretty big one. According to Heroic Hollywood, Colin Trevorrow, the director of Safety [Not Guaranteed] and the hugely successful Jurassic World, will direct Star Wars Episode IX. More on this below.

The news/rumor comes from Umberto Gonzalez (aka El Mayimbe) from Heroic Hollywood, who has a great track record with these scoops. According to him, the news will be announced at today’s SDCC Panel: “Lucasfilm will bring out Colin Trevorrow onto the stage at Hall H to announce him as the next director of Star Wars: Episode 9!”

That’s a bold statement, which if true, makes plenty of sense. Trevorrow mentioned how elements of Star Wars helped inspire him to craft the story for Jurassic World. Jurassic World is currently one of the most successful films of 2015, having grossed over $1.4 billion worldwide. Also, Jurassic World producer Frank Marshall is married to Star Wars co-chair Kathleen Kennedy. So there are a lot of hints that tell us that this will be happening.

But there are a few things that make this rumor a rumor. Numerous reports have said that Trevorrow wants to do more films that hone his craft, and do more original movies. In our interview with him, the director talked about wanting to be challenged as a filmmaker,

He also wanted to do more films that inspired him when he was a young filmmaker, specifically citing the Amblin Films of yesteryear,

But things can change. And not everything you hear in an interview can be considered “official.”

So far, the director choices that LucasFilm has been making have been inspiring ones. J.J. Abrams was the first by helming The Force Awakens. Then Rian Johnson was confirmed as director of Star Wars: Episode VIII, followed by Gareth Edwards heading Star Wars Anthology: Rogue One, while Chris Miller and Phil Lord are directing the untitled Star Wars Anthology: Han Solo film. If Trevorrow is indeed in the mix, it will be an interesting choice. Jurassic World, while successful, did have some narrative flaws. But Trevorrow has also proven that he can handle a big-budget production, so for him to even be considered isn’t surprising at all.

Star Wars Episode IX is aimming for a 2019 release.

Be sure to keep it here at Geeks Of Doom all week for our on-site coverage of SDCC 2015.

[Source: Heroic Hollywood]