Deadline Says Taika Waititi Intends To Shoot His ‘Star Wars’ Movie Next Year
Star Wars Celebration came and went, and while we had three feature film announcements come out of London, there was absolutely no mention of Taika Waititi or his movie. It may have been out of caution, as Waititi is a bit of a wild card at the moment given the number of projects he’s committed to, but a new report suggests he could be traveling to a galaxy far, far away sooner rather than later.
Deadline is reporting that Taika Waititi is circling yet another film to write and direct, an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun, which he landed on after weighing in a variety of options, including focusing on Star Wars next. Here’s the key part, though: according to Deadline insiders, Waititi is still excited about his Star Wars movie and “committed to direct that next year.”
There are a few things to analyze here. First, Waititi’s next project after Love and Thunder has been a bit of a question mark for a while. His upcoming Next Goal Wins, which bows in September, has been in post-production for a long time and should be completed by now. Prior to the release of Thor: Love and Thunder, he had signed on to a multitude of projects, and despite that, he’d said he hoped his next film after that would be Star Wars; Kathleen Kennedy even suggested he would be making the 2025 film, which now seems to be Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s project starring Daisy Ridley.
Justin Kroll, who wrote the story for Deadline, speculated recently that Waititi would be directing Akira next, and even said the script should be turned into the studio very soon. So if Klara and the Sun is next for him, what is coming after, Akira, which should have a first draft ready soon, or Star Wars, which we know very little of? (Read on to see what we actually know about it.)
Speaking of which, another interesting detail is a comment by Kathleen Kennedy in an interview with Variety, where she said that Waititi is writing the script by himself, as he doesn’t like to have others involved in the creative process:
“Taika is still working away. 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.”
This is a bit contradictory to the initial announcement, three years ago this week, which said Taika Waititi would be co-writing the film with 1917‘s Krysty Wilson-Cairns. Kennedy’s comments certainly suggest she was fired; they could simply give her a “story by” credit and don’t bring it up again. This also puts into perspective what Wilson-Cairns said in an interview with IndieWire last fall when asked about Star Wars:
“I cannot tell you anything, I’m so sorry. I don’t know much. I’m working away in a bunch of projects and I find out what I find out, and I believe if I tell anyone, they’ll come to my house and kill me, and maybe my dog as well, which, I love my dog. He’s got to live!”
So we know that Waititi is “writing away”, and yet, his film wasn’t brought up during the convention. It’s understandable that Kennedy wouldn’t want to mention it, since the writer-director could change his mind next week and decide he’s finally going to make that adaptation of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Incal he announced a year and a half ago. And yet, Lucasfilm didn’t commit to any release dates for any of the films he announced — in fact, James Mangold, who is writing and directing a film about the first Jedi to walk the galaxy, is going to direct a Bob Dylan biopic before he moves over to Star Wars. So it’s not like they would be setting anything in stone.
While the news comes out of a reliable trade, we are going to take with a grain of salt any development on Waititi’s film, even if it’s coming from him, until cameras are rolling. It is, however, interesting that we are getting some minor updates on the project from time to time, from this story to Kennedy’s quote, to the recent news that Waititi is in negotiations to star in his own film. While it may be a “no, duh” situation given his personal track record, the fact that he’s talking to Disney/Lucasfilm about the project to the degree of negotiating one of the actors already seems to indicate the script is a bit beyond “EXT: SPACE”.
There is one final element to consider here, and that pertains to the upcoming, and seemingly inevitable writers’ strike (this paragraph could even be old news by the time we hit “Publish”, but we shall include it anyways). Kennedy confirmed last month that Steven Knight would be completing his script by the end of May, yet the studios have mere hours left to reach a deal with the WGA and avoid a strike. If this doesn’t happen, and Knight halts work on the script for however long the stoppage lasts, production on the upcoming film could be set back months, especially if we consider that he’s doing a near-page one rewrite on what Damon Lindelof and Justin Britt-Gibson had previously turned in.
By that point, Taika Waititi’s script could even be further down into development, depending on how much work he’s already done on it. This is pure speculation, of course, based on the very limited amount of information we have from Waititi’s work, but it’s something the studio will have to weigh in on if they are keen to meet the December 19, 2025, release date they are targeting for their return to the big screen.
It’s all very speculative, of course, but every time we hear something about the upcoming film from Taika Waititi, a few eyebrows are raised. The story will certainly develop over the coming months, so stay tuned.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
