Did you know Lucasfilm, amid a slew of other content fleshing out the lives of every other major character, even had a Jabba the Hutt movie in the works? The news came to light last month when David S. Goyer appeared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast.
Goyer also revealed that Guillermo Del Toro was to helm the film before Lucasfilm pulled the plug on it. Goyer is the screenwriter behind many iconic superhero franchises, including the Dark Knight trilogy, the Blade trilogy and Man of Steel, and he was tapped to write the screenplay for the Star Wars film. At the time, Del Toro confirmed Goyer’s claims but refrained from providing more detail.
However, the revered Hollywood director has finally cracked and shed more light on the topic. During a recent Q&A with Collider, Del Toro confirmed he was indeed working on a Star Wars movie about the notorious villain Jabba the Hutt. The director said he was hurt by Lucasfilm’s decision to not proceed with the film but admitted there was a silver lining.
asked @RealGDT how close he came to directing a #StarWars movie at @collider's 10th anniversary screening of #PacificRim in @IMAX 3D.
His first answer is pure del Toro. He then talks about what he took away from the experience. #theriseandfallofjabbathehut pic.twitter.com/470DAsFrXd
— Steven Weintraub (@colliderfrosty) October 7, 2023
In his words, “We had the rise and fall of Jabba the Hutt, so I was super happy. 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.'”
Del Toro also shared his process for dealing with such disappointment. He said he trusts in the universe and tries to be grateful for all of life’s opportunities. He also places a premium on self-reflection to figure out the reason behind something not going his way.
Del Toro said, “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.”
When Lucasfilm hired Del Toro to develop the film, it was trying to flesh out the retconned Star Wars universe and build a proper franchise out of it. However, the studio abandoned those plans after one of the films, Solo: A Star Wars Story, bombed at the box office. The studio turned its attention to television series like The Mandalorian and Andor, which have been wildly successful.
Despite this, a movie about Jabba the Hutt, one of the most fearsome warlords of the galaxy far, far away sounds too exciting to pass up on. It would certainly be nice for Lucasfilm to tell that story, especially since it seems ready to make feature films again. Last month, the studio upgraded the planned Lando television series to a feature film.
However, if a Jabba the Hutt feature film proves too risky to make, the studio can always rework Goyer’s script and turn it into a television series. They’ve certainly found a lot of success in those and Jabba the Hutt is highly unlikely to be an exception.
