Guillermo del Toro has revealed that his Star Wars movie was going to be centered on everyone’s favourite toad-slurping crime-lord Jabba the Hutt.
Del Toro tweeted some cryptic letters in response to David S. Goyer’s revelations that he had written “an unproduced Star Wars movie that Guillermo del Toro was going to direct.” And now it appears that that “J” and “BB” were referring to Jabba the Hutt.
The Academy Award winning The Shape of Water director confirmed during a Q&A with Collider that “We had the rise and fall of Jabba the Hutt, so I was super happy.” He continued “We were doing a lot of stuff, and then it’s not my property, it’s not my money, and then it’s one of those 30 screenplays that goes away. Sometimes I’m bitter, sometimes I’m not. I always turn to my team and say, ‘Good practice, guys. Good practice. We designed a great world. We designed great stuff. We learned.'”
This is the second instance in which Del Toro’s foray into franchise territory has failed to get to the big-screen following his departure from The Hobbit, but the ever-magnanimous director still took the positives from the process, saying “You can never be ungrateful with life. Whatever life sends you, there’s something to be learned from it. So, you know, I trust the universe, I do. When something doesn’t happen, I go, ‘Why?’ I try to have a dialogue with myself. ‘Why didn’t it happen?’ And the more you swim upstream with the universe, the less you’re gonna realize where you’re going.”
With the Star Wars cinematic universe in a constant state of flux over the last few years, tales such as this can join Patty Jenkins’ Rogue Squadron and the rumoured Kevin Feige Star Wars movie on the Lucasfilm scrapheap.
There are currently three live-action Star Wars movies in development; the as-yet-untiled film from director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (Ms. Marvel) and writer Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders), which will bring Daisy Ridley back as Rey Skywalker; James Mangold’s Jedi origin story, which will explore the earliest Jedi to use the force; and Taika Waititi’s will-he-won’t-he standalone Star Wars movie.
Let us know whether you’d have been interested in seeing Guillermo del Toro’s The Rise and Fall of Jabba the Hutt by heading to our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
