Taika Waititi has talked about the tone he wants to strike in his long-gestating Star Wars project, saying he wants it to capture the “joy and entertainment” of The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi.
Among the numerous Star Wars projects announced during Disney’s Investor Day in 2020, one of the biggest was an untitled film written and directed by Taika Waititi.
Three years on, that film doesn’t appear to have moved along all that much, not least because Waititi’s had other projects on the boil, including Thor: Love And Thunder and his football comedy-drama, Next Goal Wins, which is finally out in UK cinemas on 29th December after assorted delays.
During an interview on The Kelly Clarkson Show (as spotted by IGN), Waititi talked briefly about his Star Wars project – and the most interesting morsel to come from it is the kind of tone he’s hoping to strike.
“I want to capture that joy and entertainment of those early ones like The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi and all those ones, so I’m trying to figure that out,” he said. “It’ll happen.”
Admittedly, we’d hardly expect something dark and Wagnerian from the filmmaker who had a screaming goat and Thor doing the splits in Love And Thunder, but it’s at least a potential clue as to which direction he’s going in.
It’s also an interesting counterpoint to another widely-shared quote, in which Waititi said his Star Wars film is “gonna piss people off.” He did laugh as he said that, though, so it probably shouldn’t be taken too literally. Or should it?
Whether Waititi’s Star Wars film wraps fans in a furry blanket of nostalgia or leaves them shaking their fists with rage, we probably shouldn’t expect to see the results anytime soon. “I’ve been developing it for a few years,” he said on The Kelly Clarkson Show, “but that one in particular, it’s something I really like to get right, so I don’t want to rush it. It’s going to bubble along on the side.”
This chimes with what Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy said about the project in May. “Taika is working away on this,” she said. He’s just… slow. We’ve got a couple of acts, we need a third.”
The next Star Wars film is likely to be with us in 2026, and will see Daisy Ridley returning to the role of Rey. Here’s hoping Waititi cracks that third act by then.
