JJ Abrams says he almost did not direct the upcoming Star Wars: Episode IX and taking up the project was a “crazy leap of faith” for the filmmaker.
The director, who helmed Episode VII: The Force Awakens, said it was President of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy who asked him to give it a go.
“I wasn’t supposed to be there. I wasn’t the guy, ya’ know? I was working on some other things. And then Kathy Kennedy called and said, ‘Would you really, seriously, consider coming aboard?’ The whole thing was a crazy leap of faith. And there was an actual moment when I nearly said, ‘No, I’m not going to do this.’ “It was almost, on a personal level, a dangerous thing to get too close to something that you care that much about. I felt a little bit like I was playing with fire. Like, why go back? We managed to make it work. What the hell am I thinking?” Abrams told Fast Company.
The director also shared it was challenging to commit completing the film he came onboard in 2017, with Disney committing to a release date in 2019.
“You’ve got two years from the decision to do it to release, and you have literally nothing. You don’t have the story, you don’t have the cast, you don’t have the designers, the sets,” he said. (PTI)
