Taika Waititi’s Mysterious ‘Star Wars’ Movie May Be Coming Earlier Than Anticipated

Remember Star Wars movies There’s plenty of Star Wars shows, including a new one that catches up with middle aged Obi-Wan Kenobi. But the last time there was a big screen missive from the universe George Lucas created some 45 years ago was in 2019, and that didn’t go over so well. But now there’s new hope that the next one will arrive sooner than anticipated.

This weekend marks the annual Star Wars Celebration convention in Anaheim, and they rolled out the red carpet. There was the revelation that Jude Law would be appearing in a Star Wars show about kids, to be helmed by Spider-Man director Jon Watts. Harrison Ford even showed up (to talk about the next Indiana Jones). There was also Kathleen Kennedy, Lucasfilm honcho, who doubled down on her pledge to move away from the Skywalker Saga (i.e., the original trilogy, the prequel trilogy, and then the trilogy following the original trilogy). Instead, they want to create a “whole new saga,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy also discussed the next Star Wars film on the chopping block: the mysterious one from Taikia Waititi. The film and TV-maker is pretty busy, and it was assumed he’d get around to his SW film whenever he finally had time. But Kennedy claimed they were aiming to get his film ready for release “not [in] 2023, but late 2023” — a fairly confusing pile of words, but it does indicate they want to stick with the holiday release pattern they’ve been doing since The Force Awakens.

What exactly is Waititi’s Star Wars film There are no details. But Waititi has been teasing what’s in store, telling Wired that the film so far feels “pretty me,” which may indicate that it will have some mix of goofiness and darkness, from someone who can play Korg in the third Thor, which he also directed, and make a Holocaust movie like Jojo Rabbit, which itself has some laughs.

In the meantime, late 2023 isn’t that far away, and big space movies take a while to finish. So they better get cracking.