A Taika Waititi 'Star Wars' movie may be the breath of fresh air the franchise needs after the 'Skywalker' Saga
According to a report by the Hollywood Reporter, we may be getting a Taika Waititi-directed 'Star Wars' film sometime in the near future.
With the ironically named 'Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker' bringing the Skywalker Saga to a close, there has never been a better time for the 'Star Wars' franchise to branch out into the kind of movie that fits Waititi's signature style.
Waititi has proven to be excellent at breathing new life into franchises and tired myths. Look no further than 'Thor: Ragnarok' for how well he revitalized the 'Thor' franchise. While Thor (Chris Hemsworth) continued to be a popular character on 'The Avengers,' fans were losing interest in Thor's solo films.
Reviews for 'Thor: The Dark World' were middling at best, and if from that point on, 'Thor' only appeared whenever the Avengers assembled, nobody would have complained.
Then came Taikia Waititi's first look at 'Thor: Ragnarok' with a trailer that took the internet — well, by storm. The movie took a bold new step forward, smashing Thor's legendary hammer Mjolnir to find out just who Thor was without it.
The movie also saw Thor in extremely unfamiliar settings, the golden palaces of Asgard replaced with the 80s cyberpunk aesthetic of the gladiator planet Sakaar.
It was exactly what the franchise needed to get people excited about Thor again, and Waititi will be returning to a film that sees Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) pick up Mjolnir to become a Thor herself.
He's even brought new takes to something as tired as the vampire myth, with 'What We Do in the Shadows', a mockumentary about the daily lives of a group of vampires.
The concept was popular enough to get its own show, which is heading into a second season and has seen cameos from some of Hollywood's biggest names.
Most relevantly, however, this would not be Waititi's first time directing a piece of 'Star Wars' franchise. Apart from starring in 'The Mandalorian' as a killer-robot-turned-nanny IG-11, he directed the season finale.
The episode was proof that Waititi both gets what makes 'Star Wars' work while also showing he can poke fun at old 'Star Wars' tropes, displaying them in a new light.
The extended Stormtrooper scene that began the episode gave to many 'Star Wars' fans the first real look at what the daily lives of the Imperial Army soldiers must be like.
'Star Wars,' as a franchise, needs a bit of a shaking up. The sequel trilogy was a mess caught between trying to honor the original films while bringing something new to the table, and the result was something that nobody is entirely happy with.
Waititi has proven how well he can negotiate the needs of honoring the past while creating something new, and if the talks work out, there's every reason to be excited about the future of 'Star Wars' movies.