Taika Waititi Talks “Thor: Love and Thunder” & His “Star Wars” Movie

Taika Waititi has a tremendous amount going on at the moment. The writer/director/actor will next be seen in director Shawn Levy’s Free Guywhere he blessedly got a break from the writing and directing duties to simply co-star in the film with Ryan Reynolds and Jodie Comer. Waititi plays the film’s villain, a loathsome tech bro named Antoine. Not that acting isn’t work, of course, but when you consider what else Waititi has going on, you’d be excused for thinking it must have felt like a break.

Waititi just wrapped filming on Thor: Love and Thunder, his follow-up to the film that made him a bonafide directing star, 2018’s Thor: Ragnarok. This has allowed him to start focusing on another little project, his Star Wars film. Speaking with WiredWaititi was able to dish just a bit about where that project’s at and what he’s feeling thus far.

“It’s still in the ‘EXT. SPACE’ stage,” he tells Wired, a reference to a script just being started. “But we’ve got a story. I’m really excited by it because it feels very me.” When Wired asked how he was able to marry his tone and style—irreverence, wit, endless shenanigans—to the more earnest Star Wars universe, Waititi wasn’t concerned. “I tend to go down that little sincerity alleyway in my films,” he said. “I like to fool the viewer into thinking ‘ha it’s this’ and then them going, ‘Damn it, you made me feel something!’”

Feeling something sounds like it was also on his mind when he was crafting Thor: Love and Thunder, which he has said is the craziest film he’s ever done. Not only has Waititi promised that Love and Thunder is going to be insane, but it’ll also do something no one was counting on. “What I wanted to do from the beginning was to ask: ‘What are people expecting the least from this franchise?’” he told Wired, “Oh, I know – a full-blown love story!”

For more stories on Marvel Studios and what’s streaming or coming to Disney+, check these out:

Samuel L. Jackson Shares Image From “Captain Marvel” Sequel

How the Emmy-Nominated “WandaVision” VFX Team Made Magic

Marvel’s “What If…?” Series Works For Both MCU Diehards & Casual Fans

Get To Know The Cast of “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”

Featured image: Writer/Director Taika Waititi on the set of JOJO RABIT. Photo by Kimberley French. © 2019 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved

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The Credits

The Credits is an online magazine that tells the story behind the story to celebrate our large and diverse creative community. Focusing on profiles of below-the-line filmmakers, The Credits celebrates the often uncelebrated individuals who are indispensable to the films and TV shows we love.