To celebrate Star Wars Day, Lucasfilm has announced that Academy Award winner Taika Waititi will direct and co-write a new Star Wars feature film for theatrical release.
Joining Waititi on the screenplay will be Academy Award nominee Krysty Wilson-Cairns (1917, Last Night in Soho), who received a BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Film of the Year on the three-time Oscar-winning film, 1917.
This marks Waititi’s return to the world of “Star Wars.” The “Thor: Ragnarok” filmmaker directed the first-season finale of “The Mandalorian” and voiced the bounty hunter turned nanny droid IG-11.
It’s unclear if Waititi’s film is one of Disney’s three untitled “Star Wars” movies dated for Dec. 2022, 2024 and 2026 — or if it’s a separate project.
In addition, Emmy®-nominated writer Leslye Headland (Russian Doll, Bachelorette) is currently developing a new untitled Star Wars series for Disney+. Headland will write, executive produce, and serve as showrunner for the series, which adds to a growing list of Star Wars stories for Disney’s streaming platform including The Mandalorian, now in post-production on Season Two, and two other previously announced series: one based on Cassian Andor’s life prior to the events of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and another following the adventures of Obi-Wan Kenobi between Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: A New Hope.
Release dates for both Waititi’s and Headland’s projects have not yet been announced.