Taika Waititi's Star Wars film, first announced six years ago with the kind of fanfare Lucasfilm reserves for its biggest swings, has been "put on ice," the director told Inverse this week while promoting his new film "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 said, referring to screenwriter Tony McNamara, who had taken over the script from original writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns. Pressed for details on the new project, Waititi checked with his publicist on camera and reported back: "If you have to ask, the answer is no."
The news lands as the latest entry in a now-familiar pattern. Since 2019's "The Rise of Skywalker," only one Star Wars film has actually reached theaters: this year's "The Mandalorian and Grogu," which cost a reported $165 million and brought in $346 million worldwide — a profitable but far more modest return than the franchise once commanded. By comparison, George Lucas's original 1977 "Star Wars" cost roughly $11 million, about $60 million in today's money, and has grossed $775 million globally across its various releases.
A Franchise Announcing More Than It Delivers
Waititi's film, officially announced by Lucasfilm in May 2020, joins a growing graveyard of Star Wars projects that the studio unveiled at press events and fan conventions, only for them to quietly stall. Director Patty Jenkins's film, a long-gestating trilogy from Rian Johnson, Marvel chief Kevin Feige's mooted installment, and a project from "Game of Thrones" creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have all, at various points, been announced with similar enthusiasm and similarly faded from view without a formal cancellation. A film centered on Rey's new Jedi order, once attached to director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, has likewise never been officially killed, just never actually made.
The economics help explain the caution. Modern blockbuster filmmaking has become dramatically more expensive relative to box office returns than it was in Lucas's era, and Disney-owned Lucasfilm appears to have grown increasingly wary of greenlighting original Star Wars films without a built-in audience guarantee, even as it continues to generate headlines by announcing them.
What's Actually Coming
Waititi himself left the door open to a revival, telling Inverse, "Ice ages do come to an end. Who knows?" None of this means Star Wars is going away: the franchise remains one of Disney's most valuable properties, and television has largely picked up the slack that film production has left behind. But for fans hoping Waititi's shelved project signaled Lucasfilm was ready to take creative risks on the big screen again, the news is a reminder that an announcement, however exciting, is not the same thing as a greenlight — and that the gap between the two has rarely been wider than it is right now.