#”It Feels Very Me” – /Film

Taika Waititi, both the person and the director, has never been shy about showing off his unbridled personality. Joining the Marvel machine with Thor: Ragnarok could have spelled creative doom for the bubbly talent, but he still managed to inject his lively energy into the proceedings and is already well on his way to doing the same with the sequel, Thor: Love and Thunder. On top of everything else, Waititi also has a secretive Star Wars project on the docket and, thankfully, fans can rest assured that it’ll remain Taika Waititi through and through.

It was a pleasant surprise indeed when we first found out that Lucasfilm had hired Waititi to direct a Star Wars movie of his own. In a long profile with Wired, the filmmaker reiterates that the film will still boast everything that makes a Taika Waititi movie, well, a Taika Waititi movie, and touches upon the status of the script.

“It’s still in the ‘EXT. SPACE’ stage. But we’ve got a story. I’m really excited by it because it feels very me.”

His reference to “EXT. SPACE” alludes to the screenwriting format of indicating establishing shots before the start of a scene, so it’s safe to say that Waititi is still very early on in the process of writing the script. Between filming for the Thor sequel, cameo-ing in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, and serving as the dastardly villain in Free Guy (not to mention all the other projects he has on his plate), we can probably forgive the director for only just dipping his toe into Star Wars waters for now.

A Balancing Act

Not every outgoing personality has been able to walk into Lucasfilm and come out with a completed movie that they can call their own. Directing duo Phil Lord and Chris Miller controversially parted ways with Star Wars during filming for Solo: A Star Wars Story while Colin Trevorrow similarly left pre-production of what turned out to be The Rise of Skywalker, to name only two of the most notorious examples. For his part, Waititi suggests that he’s had no problems at all integrating his peculiarities with the ongoing Star Wars behemoth. In explaining the tightrope he tries to accomplish with his movies, he adds:

“I tend to go down that little sincerity alleyway in my films. I like to fool the viewer into thinking ‘ha it’s this’ and then them going, ‘Damn it, you made me feel something!”

Taika Waititi has yet to experience a major misstep between navigating his original movies and much larger blockbuster fare, so here’s hoping that he continues to knock it out of the park with Star Wars.

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