Taika Waititi's Star Wars Movie Just got an Update, but it's Not Great News
A Taika Waititi Star Wars movie doesn't sound impossible, but it also doesn't sound likely.
When Disney bought Star Wars, the studio promised a new trilogy and a collection of spinoffs that made it look like the galaxy far, far away was going to be the next MCU. However, despite that trilogy happening and being wildly successful, at least financially, the future of the franchise has been murky at best for years. We really have no idea what's next for Star Wars after Star Wars: Starfighter comes out next year, but it now seems clear what we're not seeing anytime soon.
What's Happening:
- Back in 2020, it was announced that Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi had begun work writing a Star Wars movie. However, like a lot of announced Star Wars movies in the last few years, not much seemed to happen with it after that.
- Five years later, however, it was clear the project wasn't dead, and that things might actually be moving forward. At Star Wars Celebration in 2025, it was announced that screenwriter Tony McNamara (Poor Things) was coming on board as co-writer.
- As recently as this past January, when Kathleen Kennedy stepped down as head of Lucasfilm, she indicated that a script had been turned in, and while it probably wasn't a final draft, that at least made it clear work was happening.
- Now, however, things have gone from warm to cold, ice cold, in fact. In an interview with Inverse, Waititi says that the film is "on ice" and he and McNamara are working together on a different project.
- Waititi says he's got four other film projects that he's working on that appear to be less "iced" than the Star Wars movie. It looks like they're all things he expects to be working on before ever getting back around to Star Wars.
- While Waititi's comments indicate that he's not closing the door on the movie entirely, he says, "Ice ages do come to an end. Who knows?" It clearly isn't a priority, either for him or for Lucasfilm.
- While it's not unheard of for tentpole movies to be ignored for years and then eventually get made, it's far more likely that when a movie gets forgotten for long enough, everybody else just moves on to other things, which seems to be what Taika Waititi is doing here.
- At this point, no movies have been officially announced after the release of Star Wars: Starfighter in 2027 starring Ryan Gosling, though there are rumors that a director has been hired to helm the first piece of a new Star Wars trilogy.
More Star Wars News:
- A new Epic Games production including Star Wars characters is reportedly being developed with "AI first."
- Star Wars: Skeleton Crew was recently honored with a technical Emmy.
- Check out the latest details on the collaboration between Star Wars & Dungeons & Dragons.