Taika Waititi is officially headed to a galaxy far, far away. The filmmaker behind Thor: Ragnarok and Jojo Rabbit will direct and co-write a new Star Wars movie for theatrical release.
Oscar-nominated 1917 writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns will pen the script with Waititi. In January, The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that Lucasfilm was courting Waititi.
No release date has been set for the project, which was announced on StarWars.com to coincide with May the Fourth, the unofficial holiday celebrating all things Star Wars. Waititi, who won a screenwriting Oscar for Jojo Rabbit, has a full schedule.
He has already shot the upcoming Searchlight Pictures soccer film Next Goal Wins and has Ragnarok follow-up Thor: Love and Thunder due out Feb. 11, 2022. He cut his teeth in the Star Wars world by directing the season one finale of Disney+'s The Mandalorian and voicing the droid IG-11.
In addition to the Waititi news, Disney and Lucasfilm also confirmed Monday that Russian Doll co-creator Leslye Headland will serve as showrunner for a Disney+ streaming series set in the Star Wars galaxy.
Disney+ has become the home for new Star Wars content for the foreseeable future following December's Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which concluded the nine-film saga that began with 1977's Star Wars.
Disney has a number of streaming projects in the pipeline, including season two of The Mandalorian due out in October, but the big-screen future of Star Wars is less clear.
Disney still has a Dec. 16, 2022, date carved out for an untitled Star Wars feature, though that date was set before the exit of Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (that date had been reserved for a film they were writing).
The 2022 date was also set before the coronavirus pandemic caused seismic shifts in the Hollywood release calendar that have delayed tentpoles for months or years.
In addition to The Mandalorian and Headland's series, Disney+ also has a Diego Luna-led Rogue One prequel in the works as well as a series centering on Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan Kenobi. -Hollywood Reporter