Filmmaker Colin Trevorrow has addressed his departure from the ‘Star Wars’ franchise, having previously been attached to direct the final instalment of the current trilogy.

Colin bowed out of directing the currently-untitled ‘Episode IX’ in the autumn, with LucasFilms claiming at the time that his exit had been down to “creative differences”.

In a fresh interview with Empire, Colin was hesitant to get into the nitty-gritty of why he won’t be directing the ninth instalment in the ‘Star Wars’ series, but did make it clear he held no ill feelings towards the sci-fi franchise.

“I don’t want to talk too much about it because I don’t want to affect the way that fans get to see these films,” he explained. “When we were kids, these movies came to us from far away. They were a gift. And the more we talk about how they’re made, the more it reveals that they’re just movies.

“But they’re not just movies, they’re more than that.”

Colin continued: “Beyond that, I got the opportunity to tell a story that is a celebration of everything I believe in, I got to tell it to George Lucas and I got to tell it to Luke Skywalker, and those are experiences I will cherish for the rest of my life.”

Less than a week after Colin’s ‘Star Wars’ departure was confirmed, film bosses announced that ‘The Force Awakens’ director JJ Abrams would be back to finish what he started, helming what will serve as the final episode of the current ‘Star Wars’ trilogy.

Fans are in for a long wait, though, as ‘Star Wars: Episode IX’ is currently not slated for release until December 2019.

If you can’t hang on until then, there’s always the origin story ‘Solo’, which is currently in cinemas (and famously had some behind-the-scenes difficulties of its own to overcome).