Few directors seem better suited to a galaxy far, far, away than Guillermo del Toro. The Oscar-winning director of The Shape of Water, Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy, Pacific Rim, and so many others, thrives on practical creatures, sweeping romance, and large-scale adventure. He’d be perfect for Star Wars so, surely he’d never make a Star Wars movie, right?
Well, apparently, that was actually in the works at some point. On the Happy, Sad, Confused podcast, writer David Goyer (who worked with del Toro on Blade II) revealed that he wrote a Star Wars script that was going to be directed by del Toro which didn’t happen. However “There was just a lot of behind [the scenes] stuff going on at Lucasfilm at the time,” Goyer said. “But it’s a cool script.”
Soon after, del Toro himself confirmed the news on X. “True,” the director posted. “Can’t say much. Maybe two letters “J” and “BB” is that three letters?” Yes, Guillermo, it is. Three letters that are in the name Jabba in fact. But he, of course, didn’t say anything beyond that. Here’s del Toro’s confirmation as well as Goyer’s quote.
io9 reached out to Lucasfilm for any potential comment or clarification on this news and we’ll update the story if or when we hear. But, honestly, if the script didn’t get made because of some internal politics, that’s not something anyone is going to comment on publicly.
Goyer mentions two other things too. First, he says the del Toro drama happened about four years ago, which is telling. He also says he wrote a “script-ment for an Origins of the Jedi movie…that took place 25,000 years before the first Star Wars film.” Huge tidbits of information so let’s take each on its own.
First, four years ago would put the development around the release of The Rise of Skywalker. That was obviously a tumultuous time at the company after that film failed to live up to expectations, both critically and financially, and most feel that reception made the company very cautious about new movies. (Hence it is now four years later and we still don’t know what the next Star Wars movie is.)
Second, Goyer’s script is exactly the idea that James Mangold was announced to be writing and directing. Did Lucasfilm like Goyer’s idea but not his treatment? Did Mangold come in with a stronger idea? We don’t know at the moment what the connection is there but it has all the makings of its own drama.
Back to the biggest news though, we’re not sure we’ll ever get over finding out Guillermo del Toro was considering directing a Star Wars movie written by David Goyer.
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