Updated: Despite Rumors, Taika Waititis Star Wars Movie Is Still Alive at Lucasfilm; More Writers May Have Contributed to Drafts of the Script

Rumors of the demise of Taika Waititi's Star Wars movie have been greatly exaggerated. On Monday, World of Reel shared a paywalled Patreon post from industry insider DanielRPK where he said that Waititi's long-announced feature was 'dead'. We can confirm this isn't the case.



One Take News (OTN) was first to report that his Star Wars movie was in development prior to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes and will continue once they conclude. After OTN published their report, we have also confirmed with a source that our story from last week, where we argued that Taika Waititi's comments at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) were a joke, was accurate. The project is still alive at Lucasfilm and Waititi should go back to work once the strike is over.



Drama over Waititi's movie resurfaced once more when he took to the stage to present Shawn Levy an award at TIF, and joked that he would never finish his Star Wars script. You can watch the clip below:



https://twitter.com/Variety/status/1701024799651221625



The film was officially announced back in 2020. As far as where Taika Waititi is at in 2023, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy has previously said that they are having a small delay in crafting the third act. Not helping the problem is Waititi's schedule, who always seems to be someone who bites off more than they can chew. His next film Next Goal Wins hits theatres later this year.



Meanwhile, there is an off-chance the WGA strike might be nearing its conclusion with the writers and the AMPTP meeting once more on Wednesday. Of course even if a deal is made, official work on finishing scripts won't resume immediately. Earlier this year, a Deadline report said that Waititi wants to begin production on his film in 2024. According to Variety, the writer-director would have been in negotiations with the studio earlier this year to star in the project as well.



In any case, it isn't expected for Taika Waititi's film to be taken up by one of the three dates Lucasfilm currently has set for Star Wars movies, two in 2026 and one in December 2027. Crazier things have happened though so stay tuned!



UPDATE:



After posting the story, we noticed reporter Jeff Sneider from AboveTheLine.com said on the Hot Mic podcast that Waititi has already turned in multiple drafts of the script, which we assume from Kathleen Kennedy's and his own past comments, and that he owes them another one once the writers are allowed to go back to work, which we also assumed.



However, interestingly enough, Sneider also said that other writers have contributed to the script, though no names were mentioned. Krysty Wilson-Cairns was initially announced to be co-writing the script with Waititi, but we assumed she was no longer attached after a vague comment from her last year and especially after Kennedy said that Waititi 'is writing the script himself.'



Stay tuned in case more information is revealed.



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