A long time ago (May 2020) in a galaxy far, far away (San Francisco), Lucasfilm confirmed that Taika Waititi would be handed the reins of his own Star Wars feature film. Now, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind Jojo Rabbit has offered an update on the flick, telling Wired that the new movie “feels very me.”
There’s reason to feel optimistic. His direction for Thor: Ragnarok brought some humor to the God of Thunder, and he’s already comfortable in the Star Wars universe, having helmed the Season 1 finale of The Mandalorian. But fans ready to go out and see his take on Jedi and smugglers shouldn’t jump to hyperspace just yet. Waititi said of the script, “It’s still in the ‘EXT. SPACE’ stage. But we’ve got a story. I’m really excited by it because it feels very me.”
That doesn’t mean out-and-out silliness, even if Waititi is very comfortable in comedy. “I tend to go down that little sincerity alleyway in my films,” he said. “I like to fool the viewer into thinking ‘ha it’s this’ and then them going, ‘Damn it, you made me feel something!’”
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Elsewhere in the interview, he spoke about his co-starring role in Free Guy, as well as his approach to the recently-wrapped Thor: Love and Thunder, saying “What I wanted to do from the beginning was to ask: ‘What are people expecting the least from this franchise?’ Oh, I know – a full-blown love story!”
Besides that, Waititi’s new FX show Reservation Dogs just debuted, his in-the-works Flash Gordon has been retooled as a live action film, and he’s busy reimagining Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for Netflix while playing Blackbeard for HBO Max’s pirate comedy Our Flag Means Death.
