Filmmaker Taika Waititi is at the Sundance Film Festival right now playing the villain in the family adventure feature “Fing!” based on the children’s book of the same name.
The New Zealand-born filmmaker, who scored raves for his helming of Marvel Studios’ “Thor: Ragnarok” but not so much for its follow-up “Thor: Love and Thunder,” has also been attached to a “Star Wars” project for years.
Back in 2020, came word Disney and Lucasfilm were developing a film which Krysty Wilson-Cairns (“1917”) would write, and Waititi would direct and co-write. There’s been little in the way of news since then until the other week when Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy announced her exit from the company.
At the time, she said Waititi’s film is “still somewhat alive” and that Waititi had “turned in a script that I think is hilarious and great”. Speaking with Variety at Sundance today, Waititi was asked about what his approach to his “Star Wars” project will be:
“I’m just trying to go back and harness a little bit more of the fun from the original films, which is what I remember [from] them.
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.
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.”
Kennedy said upon her exit that the fate of Waititi’s project is “not just my decision, especially when I’ve got a foot out the door.”
Waititi also says he can’t wait for the new “Avengers” films: “I was just watching ‘Infinity War’ and ‘Endgame’ two weeks ago. They’re so good. I’m good friends with the Russos and will love to see what they’re doing.”
