Taika Waititi (What We Do in the Shadows) has been hired to direct the next Star Wars film, says Birth.Movies.Death. Waititi, whose last film Jojo Rabbit won Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, will also co-write the script alongside Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns (1917, Last Night in Soho).
Waititi can undoubtedly deliver a funny, entertaining, colorful Star Wars movie. For that, look no further than Thor: Ragnarok. However, this is Disney we are talking about here. In the eight years since it bought LucasFilm, the House of Mouse produced five Star Wars films and one live-action TV show. Despite Kathleen Kennedy’s impressive credentials (she’s been producing blockbusters since E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial), one can’t help notice the studio has had trouble charting a course for the most profitable movie franchise on the planet. It first hired then fired Colin Trevorrow; it parted ways with Phil Lord and Christopher Miller during the production of Solo: A Star Wars Story; it canceled several standalone films after Solo barely grossed $400 million worldwide. And then there’s Rian Johnson’s Star Wars trilogy that nobody even mentions anymore. With all that in mind, how can we be sure Waititi’s version of the galaxy far, far away will ever see the light of day?
