Kathleen Kennedy on Why Rian Johnson and Taika Waititi's STAR WARS Project are Taking So Long To Make

There are a lot of Star Wars film projects that have been announced since Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, but Lucasfilm has yet to actually produce one of them. Two of the most talked about projects among fans are the ones being developed by Rian Johnson and Taika Waititi.

Johnson was originally supposed to start shooting his movie five years ago, and then… nothing. Then Waititi’s film was supposed to be the next Star Wars film to be made, but that’s not really close to happening, and the filmmaker has been taking on other projects. It was supposed to go into production in early 2023, but there’s still no completed script.

Well, during a recent interview with Empire, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy offered an update on these projects along with the Lando series and Rogue Squadron, saying:

"Rian and I talk all the time. [He] just keeps getting more and more successful, and it keeps moving things back further and further. One day we'll figure this out. And Taika is working away. He's just, and he won't get mad at me for saying this, slow. We've got a couple of acts, we need a third. And 'Lando' is still on the books, and 'Rogue Squadron' is still on the books. We just want them to be great."

Johnson previously said that he regularly meets with Lucasfilm and talks to Kennedy about his project: “I’ve stayed close to Kathleen [Kennedy] and we get together often and talk about it. It’s just at this point a matter of schedule and when it can happen. It would break my heart if I were finished, if I couldn’t get back in that sandbox at some point.”

When talking about his plan to explore new characters in his films, he said: “We’re doing something that steps beyond the legacy characters. What does that look like? To me, the blue sky element of it is what was most striking about it. I know the way that I’m coming at it, and what’s fun about it for everyone in George Lucas’s films, is figuring out, ‘What’s the next step?’ It really makes you think and figure out what the essence of Star Wars is for me and what that will look like moving forward.”

As for Waititi, he talked about what he is looking to do with Star Wars, saying: “Look, I think for the Star Wars universe to expand, it has to expand. I don’t think that I’m any use in the Star Wars universe making a film where everyone’s like, ‘Oh great, well that’s the blueprints to the Millennium Falcon, ah that’s Chewbacca’s grandmother.’ That all stands alone, that’s great, though I would like to take something new and create some new characters and just expand the world, otherwise, it feels like it’s a very small story.”

Maybe one day these Star Wars projects will get made. In the meantime, we’ve got the Disney+ shows to enjoy and then there are films coming from directors James Mangold, Dave Filoni, and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.

Kennedy recently said that Lucasfilm is now looking at releasing a Star Wars movie every three to four years. She explained that this will take the pressure off meeting deadlines, and explained: “We have to eventise this. It’s much better to tell the truth, that we’re going to make these movies when they’re ready to be made, and release them when they’re ready to be released.”

We’ll just have to wait and see what happens!