What a run Taika Waititi is on. Blowing up in the public conscience after Thor: Ragnarok Taika’s brought his quirky awesome-ness to everything from Hitler to Star Wars. He’s really the type of person we need more of in this world, and I hope this run for him continues on until he’s ready for it to be done. Following his win in the ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’ category for Jojo Rabbit at this past Sunday’s Academy Awards Taika sat down with Variety to talk all things Waititi. While his Oscar winning screenplay was the topic of conversation, they couldn’t NOT address the two most popular properties in the world, of which he is associated with both, Marvel and Star Wars. First up is Thor: Love and Thunder which made waves this summer at Comic-con when it was announced that, not only would Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster be returning, but she would be wielding Mjolnir as Thor in the film. Comic’s fans will know that this is an actually story-line from the Thor books, in which Jane takes on the power of Thor to beat the cancer that has stricken her body. At first, it seemed like Taika was confirming this story-line, but then quickly added a few qualifiers that leave everything pretty much up in the air, when asked if Jane would have cancer as she did in the comics Waititi responded:
We don’t know. That comics run was a big inspiration, and was an influence on the first few drafts. But at Marvel, we always change everything. I could say one thing right now, and in two years, it will be the complete opposite — or that thing won’t exist. We continue writing even in post-production.
I mean, maybe that’s more just being truthful then evasive but still doesn’t leave us with anything solid. Then they venture into Star Wars at which point the hot director points out something very obvious about how we pop-culture and media writers pull stories from the smallest stretch of something possible. When asked if he’s working on a project from a galaxy far, far, away he adds:
I think people see me hanging out with people, especially with “Star Wars,” and think I’m having some big discussions about it. I would f—ing love to.
So there you have it, maybe they’ll follow the Lady Thor comics, and he would love to work on something Star Wars related. Not to be cynical, the truth is that if the comics were a big inspiration then we can pretty much count on at least part of that story-line being included. The MCU has been pretty damn awesome at pulling out the pieces of a particular story-line that works and adding what’s needed to make it theatrical.
Congrats on the win Taika! You deserve it!
