Could one of the most hated and talked about Star Wars characters of all time be getting an origin story in the future?
What Happened: It was announced in 2020 that director Taika Waititi, best known for his work on the Thor franchise, would be joining the Star Wars franchise to helm a new theatrical release.
Waititi said in an interview on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” that he was joking in suggesting he was working on a movie that would center on Star Wars character Jar Jar Binks.
“No I’m not. Imagine if I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna give you the Jar Jar Binks story that everyone has been asking about,’” Waititi said.
Jar Jar Binks was featured in “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace,” “Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones,” “Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith” and the animated series “Star Wars: The Clone Wars.”
The untitled Waititi film is one of several theatrical releases planned for the Star Wars franchise, now owned by The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS).
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Why It’s Important: Waititi’s work on the Thor franchise has been well received. The user score for “Thor: Ragnarok” is 7.9 on IMDb, a unit of Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN), compared to ratings of 7.0 and 6.8 respectively for the first two Thor movies.
Waititi also was the director of the eighth episode of “The Mandalorian,” a Star Wars series on Disney+. The IMDb rating for the eighth episode called “Redemption” is 9.2, the best rating for all season-one episodes and third best in the series history.
Rumors recently popped up that Jar Jar Binks would appear in the Disney+ series “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” but that proved to be false.
There are numerous Star Wars themed series coming to Disney+, the streaming platform from Disney. The last theatrical Star Wars movie came in 2019 with “Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker.” Since the COVID-19 pandemic, all Star Wars content has been in the form of series for Disney+ instead of movie theaters.
Future Star Wars movies include Rogue Squadron, a Kevin Feige directed movie, and a new trilogy from Rian Johnson, who previously helmed “The Last Jedi.”
Lucasfilm has moved some Star Wars movies around, including Rogue Squadron moving to 2027 from 2023. The move led to speculation that the Waititi directed Star Wars movie could come in 2023, sooner than originally expected.
Waititi may have put those rumors to rest, sharing recently that he didn’t plan on shooting the Star Wars film soon.
“Not this year,” Waititi told The Wrap on a question of filming his Star Wars movie. "I’m still trying to figure out what the story is."
Waititi cited time commitments to other projects as part of the reason filming couldn’t begin, along with the important fact of not knowing the storyline for the movie.
Along with the untitled 2023 Star Wars movie, Lucasfilm also has a fifth movie in the Indiana Jones franchise, starring Harrison Ford, hitting theaters on June 30, 2023.
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