Taika Waititi's Star Wars Movie Could Put Akira and Thor: Love and Thunder in Jeopardy

If you love the conclusion to the first season of Star Wars: The Mandalorian, then there could be some exciting times ahead as Taika Waititi is reportedly being courted by Lucasfilm to direct a future Star Wars movie. This all begs the question, what is going to happen to Thor: Love and Thunder and the Akira movie that the filmmaker is supposed to be working on. Well, it is a bit complicated, but let's start with the basics. So, Lucasfilm is trying to nail the director down for a future installment, but The Hollywood Reporter's initial reveal doesn't say how far along negotiations are at the moment. Waititi is still basking in the glow of JoJo Rabbit and his next upcoming movie is Next Goal Wins. So, there's a bit of a queue lined up for the filmmaker at this point.

After the soccer-related film with Michael Fassbender wraps, it will be time for Waititi to return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe for Thor: Love and Thunder. THR's report says, "Waititi remains involved with Akira, Warner Bros.' adaptation of the classic anime, and is to tackle that after Thor. Any potential Star Wars undertaking could impact those plans." So, a little bit of unpacking to do with those comments. It seems counter-productive to take Waititi off of Thor at the moment with Marvel's cinematic slate filling out. Add to that the fact that Thor's next adventure is one of the biggest draws for Marvel in the immediate future in this post Avengers: Endgame landscape. Kevin Feige just being pulled into the brain trust for Star Wars recently also bodes well for the two sides to work together with more communication. It would be hard to imagine Thor getting pushed aside.

So, that leaves Akira, and that property is much hairier than it would appear on the surface. Warner Bros. moved the live-action adaptation off of its film schedule over the holidays and replaced it with The Matrix 4. Add to that the other consternation the project has faced since being announced and it is much easier to see things getting shuffled around to accommodate Star Wars. Akira has been in Warner Bros.' plans since 2002 when they acquired the rights. But, here we all sit with not a lot to show for it. In an interview last year, Waititi himself talked about not letting these big projects detract from each other.

"Because we were working really hard on the script, we had to keep pushing back the start date for the shoot," Waititi explained. "And we ended up having to push it a couple of weeks too far, which actually ate into the Thor schedule. It was very close together. Then it got pushed again, and again. It just got too far into the foreschedule to make it work. So now we had to kind of take Akira, and sort of shift it around to the tail end of Thor, and move it down a couple of years. But yeah, still want to make it."

There it is, the director is going to try and manage as best he can, but that plate is getting filled up. As it stands right now, the most logical choice for the project to get moved around is Akira because it's already happened so much. Fans will just have to wait and see.