Taiki Waititi To Direct New Star Wars Movie, Leslye Headland Confirmed To Helm New Star Wars Series

John F. Trent |

May 4, 2020

Disney and Star Wars announced that Taika Waititi will direct a brand new Star Wars film.

Not only will Waititi direct the film but he will also co-write the screenplay. He will be joined by 1917 screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns.

Disney provides the specifics in a press release:

“Academy Award® winner Taika Waititi, who recently won Best Adapted Screenplay for “Jojo Rabbit” and directed the widely-acclaimed first season finale episode of “The Mandalorian” on Disney+, 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.””

No release date for the film was announced.

Back in February, Waititi avoided a question regarding his involvement in Star Wars. He told ET, “Listen, what does ‘approached’ even mean? I’ve seen Star Wars, that’s about as far as it got.”

Waititi previously directed the final episodes of The Mandalorian and portrayed IG-11 in the series.

Waititi is currently working on Disney and Marvel Studios’ Thor: Love and Thunder.

Headland Series Confirmed

Along with Waititi and Krysty Wilson-Cairns working on an upcoming new Star Wars film, Disney also confirmed rumors that Leslye Headland would helm a new Star Wars series.

The press release details:

“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 in-development 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 2, and two other previously ordered series: one based on Cassian Andor prior to the events of “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” and another following the adventures of Obi-Wan Kenobi between “Revenge of the Sith” and “A New Hope.””

No further details were announced regarding the plot or story of either the newly announced film or series. Headland’s series is currently in development.

Previous rumors regarding Headland’s series indicated it will be female-centric and that it will take place “in a different part of the Star Wars timeline than other projects.”

Headland is the former personal assistant to Harvey Weinstein and has made a number of controversial comments in the past in regards to women in filmmaking.

At Variety’s Inclusion Summit, Headland explained that white people are not diverse and that white women need to step up their game.

She explained, “I just want to say that I think white women need kind of to step up their game to be quite honest. Sorry, but I’m calling you b****** out. You really do.”

Headland continued, “Cause like, I couldn’t agree more with everything these women are saying, but I’m also seeing the silent killer, which is a lot of white women at the top, who are kind of reinforcing a lot of old ideas.”

“I think a lot of it…to give them the benefit of the doubt and I’ll just speak from my own personal experience, I wasn’t sure how to be an ally. I got so caught up with what kind of terminology I was supposed to be using and being politically correct,” Headland stated.

She added, “So as I started to rise in television, I just started to get more blunt. And just start saying, ‘I would like a black writer.’ Because if I said diverse you get well, ‘White is diverse,’ which is something somebody said to me.”

Headland then stated, “And I was like, ‘Wow!’ I was like ‘It’s not, cool.'”