Guillermo del Toro almost entered a galaxy far, far away by helming a “Star Wars” film.
Screenwriter David Goyer said during the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast that he wrote a “Star Wars” script that del Toro was going to direct back in 2019. However, Lucasfilm decided to shelve the project.
“I wrote an unproduced ‘Star Wars’ movie that Guillermo del Toro was going to direct. That was about four years ago,” Goyer said. “There was just a lot of behind stuff going on at Lucasfilm at the time but it’s a cool script. There’s a lot of cool artwork from it that was produced.”
Goyer added, “And then I have also wrote an unproduced, I have a script treatment, for an origins of the Jedi movie also for ‘Star Wars’ that I wrote for them that took place 25,000 years before the first ‘Star Wars’ film. I got to do the Vader Immortal VR thing, but dabbling in ‘Star Wars’ would have been fun for me.”
Del Toro tweeted confirming Goyer’s statements, writing, “True. Can’t say much. Maybe two letters ‘J’ and ‘BB’ is that three letters?”
IndieWire has reached out to del Toro and Lucasfilm for comment.
Del Toro previously shared his dream “Star Wars” idea in 2015, telling Yahoo! that he envisioned a “Godfather”-inspired saga centered around Jabba the Hutt.
“This is not real, this is me as a fat geek just geeking out and talking about it,” del Toro said at the time. “I would do the sort of ‘Godfather’ saga that Jabba the Hutt had to go through to gain control. One, because it’s the character that looks the most like me, and I like him. I love the idea of a Hutt type of mafia, a very complex coup. I just love the character.”
The “Star Wars” cinematic universe is expanding with the upcoming “Lando” film starring Donald Glover; the project was originally set as a Disney+ series before screenwriter Stephen Glover confirmed it would be a feature.
A separate Taika Waititi film in which Waititi will write, direct, and act is rumored to be shelved in the meantime. Del Toro has since stated that he is focusing on animated films going forward.
