With Taika Waititi’s Star Wars film tentatively slated for a late 2023 release, which will mark a new installment of the franchise universe, the writer-director has an update for us: He is officially “trying to write” the script.
“I’m trying to write the Star Wars idea at the moment,” Waititi shares in an interview with the New York Times. “I’ve got to see how that goes, because once I submit it, that might determine when it gets made or if it gets made, even.”
If it ends up not making the cut (although that seems unlikely), Waititi says he’s “cool as well to take six months off and just go hang out with [his] kids.”
It’s not like he’s lacking work. In addition to the Star Wars feature, Waititi’s slated for a Time Bandits series at Apple TV+, two Roald Dahl projects for Netflix, and an adaptation of Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius’ The Incal. Not to mention, Flash Gordon, Akira, Next Goal Wins, and oh, the eventual second season of Our Flag Means Death for HBO Max. He’s also somehow set aside time for the second season of the Hulu series Reservation Dogs. Busy, busy man.
And, when it comes to actually writing the Star Wars script, Waititi’s previously said it feels “very him” and that he seeks to “expand” the universe.
“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,’” the director recently told Total Film. “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.”
Waititi’s next project, the highly anticipated Marvel sequel Thor: Love And Thunder, arrives in theaters on July 8.