Last month, screenwriter David Goyer casually revealed that he wrote an “wrote an unproduced Star Wars movie that Guillermo del Toro was going to direct.” Naturally, people freaked out over the news that they missed out the visionary director getting a chance to put his stamp on the galaxy far, far away. It also didn’t help that del Toro leaned into the hype by confirming Goyer’s tale on Twitter.
“True. Can’t say much,” del Toro tweeted along with a clip of Goyer from the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “Maybe two letters ‘J’ and ‘BB’ is that three letters?”
The Pan’s Labyrinth director also clarified that the Lucasfilm talks happened “about 6 years ago.” Goyer had said it was about four years, so he was in the ballpark.
Well, apparently, something has changed because del Toro has opened up about the Star Wars project that never came to be. To the surprise of no one, the film would’ve centered around one of the greatest film creature creations of all time: Jabba the Hutt. del Toro loves creature work, and Jabba is the crown jewel of practical effects.
“We had the rise and fall of Jabba the Hutt, so I was super happy,” del Toro told Collider. “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.
From the sound of things, del Toro and his team got pretty far with design elements for the potential Jabba film. While it’s disappointing that the project never came to fruition, he looks at the missed opportunity as a chance for them to hone their craft.
“Sometimes I’m bitter, sometimes I’m not,” del Toro said. “I always turn to my team and say, ‘Good practice, guys. Good practice. We designed a great world. We designed great stuff. We learned.'”
(Via Collider, The Hollywood Reporter)
