Taika Waititi Is Giving Up On Star Wars?

Taika Waititi admits he’s struggling with a script for his Star Wars movie.

By TeeJay Small
| Published 8 seconds ago

After struggling to write his upcoming Star Wars screenplay for three years, it looks like Taika Waititi may be throwing in the towel. According to a recent in-depth interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the JoJo Rabbit filmmaker is experiencing a great deal of burnout and sees the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike as a harsh but necessary moment of respite. The high-profile artist has stated that he’s perfectly content to take some time off from writing to follow his wife, pop star Rita Ora, on tour and relax for a while.

Taika Waititi and Rita Ora met during a house party in 2018 and began a fast romance, resulting in their marriage last August. As a bonafide celebrity power couple, the pair have worked together on a number of films, music videos, and other creative projects, which have served to give Waititi a much-needed break from the fast-paced world of writing and directing some of the most powerful and moving films of the last two decades. When it was first announced that Waititi would be helming an upcoming film in the Star Wars canon, many fans were overjoyed due to the director’s previous successes directing films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Of course, recent reports of Disney slashing budgets for both the Marvel and Star Wars franchises have left many fans wondering if the Taika Waititi Star Wars film would ever materialize, with speculation from insiders seeming to suggest the project was dead on arrival. These fears were only exacerbated when the Writers Guild began their strike on May 1, halting all film and television projects for the foreseeable future. This Hollywood Reporter interview seems to be the first time in months that Waititi has acknowledged his involvement with the untitled Star Wars film, confirming that the project is still in active development, despite his apparent exhaustion.

When he isn’t feeling Star Wars fatigue from slogging through a years-long unfinished screenplay, Taika Waititi has been busy serving as a producer on hit television series such as What We Do In The Shadows, Reservation Dogs, and Our Flag Means Death, which the Maori filmmaker also stars in alongside an ensemble cast featuring Rhys Darby, Vico Ortiz, Con O’Neil, and Kristian Nairn. With all these projects forced to go on hiatus amid the WGA strike, Waititi can finally take some time to himself and focus on his family. The director seems to see this unfortunate turn of events as a blessing in disguise, explaining in his interview that he’s happy to finally unwind and stop being so uptight about his art.

Taika Waititi’s next film, Next Goal Wins, is set to arrive in theaters on November 17, adapting the true story of a Dutch soccer coach who must work with a team of Samoan players who consistently fail to outperform their peers on the field. Whether or not Waititi’s Star Wars film will ever materialize remains to be seen, though one thing is certain: wherever Waititi goes next, the viewing public will surely follow with open minds and open arms.