The overall direction of the Star Wars franchise after the nine-part Skywalker saga — which concluded last year with Rise of Skywalker — is still uncertain, but Lucasfilm has announced a new film in the works: Taika Waititi, fresh from the Oscar-winning Jojo Rabbit, has signed on to direct a Star Wars movie, which he will co-write with 1917 screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns.
The announcement on the official Star Wars website shed no light on when in the saga’s timeline the film might take place, what characters might be involved, or any other details.
“We’ve got various things we’re looking at and various ways in which we can begin or not,” Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy told Rolling Stone in November, just before the announcement of the cancellation of a planned trilogy from Game of Thrones‘ David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. “As you can imagine. You know, do you go back? Do you go forward? All those questions are being asked. Do we stay in this galaxy? Do we go to another? The universe is never-ending. The good news and the bad news. They have endless possibilities. It’s liberating, it’s exciting, and it creates a lot of pressure and anxiety as well.”
Waititi, who first worked with Disney on the much-loved Thor: Ragnarok — by far the funniest, quirkiest Marvel movie — joked on Twitter in 2017 that he’d like to do Star Wars movies, but feared he’d be “fired in a week.” Last year, though, he directed the ambitious season finale of The Mandolarian, to widespread praise.
Lucasfilm also confirmed reports that Russian Doll co-creator writer Leslye Headland will be the creator and show runner of an upcoming Disney+ Star Wars show, again without revealing any details of the project. The Mandolorian, set to return to Disney+ this year, was the first live-action Star Wars TV show; series starring Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Diego Luna as Cassian Andor (the anti-hero introduced in Rogue One) are also on their way.
