Steven Spielberg has a long history with Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and her husband, producer Frank Marshall. It’s a relationship that dates way back to the formation of Amblin, and continues today as the three friends have helped each other on various projects, including Jurassic World and the upcoming Indiana Jones 5. It was Kennedy who found Colin Trevorrow for the Jurassic Park sequel, having recently worked with another young up-and-coming director on a potential Star Wars anthology project. That director was Josh Trank, and if you mention his name to Spielberg, it turns out that he can do a great Mean Girls impression.

THR’s profile of Spielberg is filled with great stuff, including a story about how the director managed to convince J.J. Abrams to direct The Force Awakens (it didn’t take much convincing). Spielberg seems pretty involved with the franchise, which was originally launched by his old pal George Lucas and is now operating under the guidance of Kathleen Kennedy. Not only did Spielberg recommend Abrams for The Force Awakens, but he’s a fan of Rian Johnson and Trevorrow (obviously), the directors of Episode 8 and 9, respectively.

For someone so fond of discovering new talent, and so well-acquainted with Kennedy’s Star Wars plans, you’d think Spielberg would be aware of Josh Trank. The promising director of Chronicle was once attached to direct one of the upcoming Star Wars anthology films, rumored to center on Boba Fett. But Lucasfilm parted ways with Trank following numerous reports of issues on the set of the disastrous Fantastic Four reboot.

So when asked how he ensures that one of his proteges isn’t “another Josh Trank,” Spielberg only had this to say:

Who is that?

WHO IS THAT! There is literally no way that Spielberg doesn’t know about Josh Trank. None. He’s such good friends with Kennedy and involved with the Star Wars universe enough to deliver not just one, but two directors to the franchise. Sure, he doesn’t mention Gareth Edwards or Phil Lord and Chris Miller, but can guarantee he knows exactly who they are.

It would appear that what we have here is a very smooth, very unexpected — but no less impressively harsh — diss, or as the kids might call it, a “burn.” My heart goes out to Josh Trank today.

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