Taika Waititi has confirmed that his long-awaited Star Wars film has been put on hold, more than six years after the project was first announced.
The New Zealand filmmaker, who has been attached to write and direct a film set in the Star Wars universe since 2020, revealed the update while promoting his latest release, Klara and the Sun.
“I hate to break this to you, but we’re going to actually put it on ice and we’re working on a different thing together,” Waititi told Inverse when asked about the project’s future. According to the publication, his publicist quickly intervened to prevent him from revealing any further details.
“Well, there’s your answer,” Waititi responded. “I don’t even know how to dress it up or make it even vague.”
“It’s very iced. I’ve got about four other movies I’m trying to do,” he added. “Ice ages do come to an end… Who knows?”
Per Variety, the project has remained in development for several years despite Waititi previously expressing enthusiasm about bringing his own take to the franchise. As recently as January, the Oscar-winning filmmaker outlined his ambitions for the film, explaining that he wanted to recapture the spirit of George Lucas’ original trilogy.
“I was trying to go back and harness a little bit more of the fun from the original films, which is what I remember [from] them,” he said at the time. “The stakes are very high, and there’s serious things going on, but there’s also a lot of fun to be had in those films. That’s what I was trying to bring back,” he continued.
“I was trying to work in a world that was a little bit separate to that because they’ve got so many things going on within that space. For me to do something there, it would need to be a little different and a little bit more its own thing.”
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The project’s future had already been uncertain, with outgoing Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy previously describing Waititi’s film as “still somewhat alive”.
Earlier this month, Waititi spoke to Rolling Stone AU/NZ about his other upcoming projects, including an adaptation of Percival Everett’s novel James, which he hopes to begin filming in 2027. The filmmaker also revealed that he and Jemaine Clement are still working on a sequel to their 2014 mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows, although the project remains in its early stages.
For now, Waititi’s attention is on Klara and the Sun, his adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s bestselling novel starring Jenna Ortega, Amy Adams and Natasha Lyonne, which hits Australia and New Zealand cinemas later this week.
