Taika Waititi puts his Star Wars movie 'on ice' six years after Lucasfilm announced it

Taika Waititi's Star Wars film has been put on hold with no new date, the director has confirmed, six years after Lucasfilm announced it. Speaking to Inverse while promoting his new film Klara and the Sun, the Oscar-winning New Zealander said the project is now "very iced", as The Playlist and Variety reported.

What Waititi said

Asked about the film, Waititi said he and his co-writer were going to "put it on ice" and were working on "a different thing together" instead. He added that he has "about four other movies" he is trying to make.

He did not close the door completely. "Ice ages do come to an end. Who knows?" he said. When pressed on the new project, he checked with his publicist and kept quiet. Lucasfilm has not formally cancelled the film.

Six years in development

• May 2020: Lucasfilm announces a Star Wars feature directed by Waititi, first developed with Krysty Wilson-Cairns, the co-writer of 1917 and Last Night in Soho.
• Later: Tony McNamara, the two-time Oscar-nominated writer of The Favourite and Poor Things, joins as co-writer.
• January 2026: Outgoing Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy says Waititi has delivered a screenplay, and praises it.
• October 2026: Waititi says the film is on ice and that he and McNamara are now working on something else together.

Waititi already has Star Wars experience: he directed the Season 1 finale of The Mandalorian and voiced the droid IG-11. He won the Oscar for Jojo Rabbit's adapted screenplay and directed Thor: Ragnarok and Thor: Love and Thunder.

Part of a long list

The pause puts Waititi's film on a growing shelf of announced Star Wars movies that have stalled. The Playlist lists Patty Jenkins' Rogue Squadron, Rian Johnson's planned trilogy after The Last Jedi, the trilogy David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were to make, a Kevin Feige project that was dropped, and James Mangold's film about the dawn of the Jedi, which is also on hold. A trilogy from Simon Kinberg is still in development.

For Star Wars fans in Pakistan, that leaves no fixed date for a Waititi take on the galaxy. His next release is Klara and the Sun, his adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, which he is now promoting, as Stuff reported.

More film news is on our entertainment page, including Quentin Tarantino's update on his 10th film.