Taika Waititi to direct and co-write a new 'Star Wars' movie with '1917' screenwriter

Taika Waititi just can’t stop adding projects to his crowded slate — and he’s now set for a trip to the galaxy far, far away.

Waititi has signed on to direct a new Star Wars movie for cinema release and will also pen the script, alongside 1917 screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns.

The official Star Wars website unveiled the news to mark May the Fourth — also known as Star Wars Day.

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Waititi is already a part of the Star Wars universe, having directed the first season finale of The Mandalorian for Disney+ as well as voicing droid IG-11 in the show.

The Thor: Ragnarok director was linked to helming a Star Wars movie earlier this year, but tweets from 2017 showed him suggesting he’d likely “be fired within a week”.

He is set to join forces on the new project with Wilson-Cairns, who was Oscar-nominated for her work alongside Sam Mendes on the script for war movie 1917.

Waititi won Best Adapted Screenplay at the ceremony for Second World War satire Jojo Rabbit.

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The announcement of the new Star Wars movie may come as a surprise to some given the recent reticence to expand upon the future of the universe on the big screen.

Disney executive chairman Bob Iger, who was then CEO, announced in November 2019 that the franchise would be put on “hiatus” after the release of The Rise of Skywalker.

That, however, may still be the case given the scrum of projects currently crowding Waititi’s packed diary.

The Kiwi filmmaker is currently in post-production on true-life football movie Next Goal Wins and is hard at work finishing up the script for Marvel sequel Thor: Love and Thunder.

He has also committed himself to writing and directing a pair of Netflix animated series based around Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Meanwhile, his long-gestating adaptation of Akira also remains on the back-burner.

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Disney has not provided any further information on this new Star Wars project, but it joins a huge selection of upcoming material based in the galaxy far, far away.

The second season of The Mandalorian is on the way this year after the success of the first run, powered by the cuteness of Baby Yoda.

Disney+ is also developing series based on Obi-Wan Kenobi and Rogue One’s Cassian Andor.

Russian Doll co-creator Leslye Headland, meanwhile, is working on a female-centric Star Wars series for the streaming platform.

There’s also the trilogy of films Rian Johnson has been developing ever since he made The Last Jedi in 2017. As of October, the director was still claiming those movies are in the pipeline.