Taika Waititi spoke on The Kelly Clarkson Show recently to promote his new film, Next Goal Wins, the follow-up to his much-maligned MCU comedy, Thor: Love and Thunder. However, before the interview ended, the conversation shifted to Waititi's previously confirmed Star Wars film.
Given the lukewarm reception to Love and Thunder and recent comments by Disney CEO Bob Iger that the company will be reducing the quantity of Marvel and Star Wars content released in the future years, some fans speculated that Taika's Star Wars picture would be axed. However, this does not appear to be 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 initially unveiled in May 2020 during the Star Wars Day Celebration. He was still riding high from revitalizing the Thor series with Ragnarok, and he hadn't yet unveiled the polarizing 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.
Following the release of Love and Thuder and in light of Iger's aforementioned comments on Star Wars content, it was widely assumed that Taika's picture would be canceled, but instead, Star Wars films from Kevin Feige and Patty Jenkins 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."