Taika Waititi gave a revealing, less-than-optimistic update about his Star Wars movie with an unlikely admission.
What happened to Taika Waititi’s Star Wars movie?
Per Variety, Waititi was on hand at the Toronto International Film Festival Tribute Awards to honor Free Guy director Shawn Levy with the inaugural Norman Jewison Career Achievement Award. While giving his speech, Waititi referred to Levy’s planned Star Wars spinoff movie while hinting that his own project may have stalled in the development stage.
“Unlike me, let’s hope he manages to finish a script for that,” Waititi said.
In May 2020, Waititi was announced by Lucasfilm as being officially set to co-write and direct a new Star Wars project intended for a theatrical release. The announcement came following the actor/director’s role as the voice of IG-11 in The Mandalorian series on Disney+, in which he also directed the Season 1 episode, “Chapter 8: Redemption.” Waititi was set to co-write his Star Wars movie with Penny Dreadful writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns, with plans for Lucasfilm to release in 2023 before Patty Jenkins’ Rogue Squadron which was later scrapped.
While story details were never released, Waititi teased new characters in the galaxy far, far away. “Look, I think for the Star Wars universe to expand, it has to expand,” Waititi said. “I don’t think that I’m any use in the Star Wars universe making a film where everyone’s like, ‘Oh great, well that’s the blueprints to the Millennium Falcon, ah that’s Chewbacca’s grandmother.’ That all stands alone, that’s great, though I would like to take something new and create some new characters and just expand the world, otherwise it feels like it’s a very small story.”
Since 2022, Waititi and Lucasfilm have given little to no updates on the Thor: Love and Thunder director’s project. No announcement about Waititi’s movie was made at Star Wars Celebration 2023 outside of plans for future movies set following the events of Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker and others. Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy had previously mentioned that the Waititi movie was still in active development.
“Taika is still working away,” Kennedy said. “He’s writing the script himself. He doesn’t really want to bring others into that process and I don’t blame him. He has a very, very unique voice. So we want to protect that and that’s what he’s doing. But we’re going to make that one day.”
