Director Taika Waititi was a recent guest on The Kelly Clarkson Show to promote his new movie, Next Goal Wins, the follow-up to his much-maligned MCU film, Thor: Love and Thunder. However, before the interview ended, the discussion turned towards Waititi's previously announced Star Wars movie.
Given the tepid reception to Love and Thunder and recent comments made by Disney CEO Bob Iger that the company would be pulling back on the amount of Marvel and Star Wars content released over the coming years, some fans thought Taika's Star Wars film would be on the chopping block. However, it doesn't sound as if that's the case.
"I've been developing [the Star Wars film] for a few years, but I think with any film, but that one in particular, it's something I'd really like to get right, so I don't want to rush it," Waititi said. "It's going to bubble along on the side," said Waititi.
He continued, "I wanna 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. It'll happen."
The conversation shifts towards a galaxy, far, far away in the video below, at the 10:50 minute mark.
Taika's Star Wars film was first announced at the May, Star Wars Day Celebration in 2020. He was still riding the highs of resurrecting the Thor franchise with Ragnarok and had not yet released the divisive Love and Thunder.
Taika was announced to be directing and co-writing the screenplay alongside Krysty Wilson-Cairns (Penny Dreadful, 1917). Since then, Wilson-Cairns has departed the project, and Taika was stated to be working on the script alone. It was also previously reported that Waiti would also potentially star in the film.
After Love and Thuder's release and in the wake of Iger's aforementioned comments regarding Star Wars content, it was heavily speculated that Taika's film would be canceled but instead, it was Star Wars films from Kevin Feige and Patty Jenkins that were shelved.
Taikia also previously (jokingly...hopefully) teased that his Star Wars film would "piss people off."
He also stated, "Look, I think for the Star Wars universe to expand, it has to expand. 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."