Another day and another story about the long in development Taika Waititi Star Wars movie. This time the writer-director opened up about the project and shared that he’s hoping to capture the joy of the original trilogy.
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Taika’s Star Wars film has been making headlines over the past few weeks due to the director being on a promotional run for his latest release, Next Goal Wins, which opened last weekend to a disappointing box office opening (the film has currently made $2.6M) and a equally unflattering Rotten Tomatoes score (42%). Naturally the topic of Star Wars has reared its head various times during interviews with the writer-director sharing some headline worthy quotes about the mysterious flick.
Last week the What We Do In the Shadows co-creator told Entertainment Tonight that he and Lucasfilm had agreed for him to finish writing four scripts for other film projects before re-focusing his efforts on his Star Wars movie with the director adding that he wants to take his time and get the film right. He then followed up that nugget by telling Variety that his Star Wars film would very much be a, “Taika Waititi film”, when asked if the film would be true to what Star Wars fans have come to know and love about the movies, before the director added that his Star Wars movie will, “Piss people off”, as he began to laugh.
As the internet seemingly loves to complain and respond negatively to any update to the Waititi film since the release of Thor: Love and Thunder, you can imagine the comments from last week didn’t go over too well with some sections of the Star Wars fandom. Personally anytime I share an update on the Waititi flick, it’s always met with a negative response to my dismay. The Jojo Rabbit directors comments to Variety were headline provoking, but it’s very much in line with the filmmakers personality, a personality which features a lot of sarcasm and humour, so I believe he was just be playful when he dropped the, “piss people off”, comment and let’s be honest, pretty much any Star Wars project these days ticks off at least some portion of the fan-base – you can’t please everybody.
That brings us to now where Waititi appeared on The Kelly Clarkson show to help promote Next Goal Wins. The filmmaker had a much softer approach to the interview than what we’ve been seeing for the past week, maybe it’s because of the Next Goal Wins reception both critically and financially. When asked about his Star Wars movie, Taika took no opportunity to crack jokes, instead he emphasised his ambition to get the project right and that he really wants capture the “joy” and “entertainment” of the original trilogy, namely The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. The Hunt For the Wilderpeople director added that Lucasfilm want something particular from this film and that he won’t rush the effort, that he’ll ’bubble along’ developing the flick as they gear up to release their first Star Wars film since The Rise of Skywalker, an untitled Rey Skywalker led film that’s looking to release in May 2026. You can read Waititi’s comments below.
“Yeah, I’ve been developing that for a few years with them [Lucasfilm]. But, with any film, they want it particular, and it’s something I want to get right, so I don’t want to rush it. I’m just going to bubble along the side. It’s exciting. I want to capture the joy and entertainment of those early ones, like Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, all those ones. So I’m just trying to figure that out, but it’ll happen.” – Taika Waititi
I hope that one day we will see the Taika Star Wars film. I’m a fan of the filmmaker, despite not loving his two latest releases (I didn’t dislike them either). At the time he was hired, he was the director I was really hoping to see tackle a Star Wars film and I am still very much looking forward to see what he delivers. I think many who criticise the filmmaker have only ever seen his two Thor efforts, with Love and Thunder disappointing many of those viewers, and likely don’t like his persona. I found his latest two releases middling, but thought What We Do in the Shadows, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Jojo Rabbit and Thor: Ragnarok to be great films, and I thought he really delivered with The Mandalorian season one finale, something I think many of his critics in the Star Wars fandom forget that he directed.
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