Director Guillermo del Toro almost got to pilot his own “Star Wars” spinoff based on the saga of Jabba the Hutt.
Last month, the three-time Oscar winner revealed he was once in talks to direct a “Star Wars” film. Now, he’s opening up about why his origin story of the crime lord space-slug never materialized.
Del Toro, a master of the macabre, told Collider, “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.”
Though undeniably disappointed, the “Pan’s Labyrinth” filmmaker said he learned to accept how the situation played out.
“Sometimes I’m bitter, sometimes I’m not,” he 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.’”
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“You can never be ungrateful with life,” he went on. “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.”
Del Toro basically spelled out his “Star Wars” secret after screenwriter David S. Goyer dished about the ill-fated LucasFilms project, which he said was in the works about four years ago.
Confirming Goyer’s story in a post on X, formerly Twitter, del Toro told fans, “True. Can’t say much. Maybe two letters ‘J’ and ‘BB’ is that three letters?”
While there doesn’t appear to be a Jabba the Hutt movie on the horizon, “Star Wars” fans still have a full slate of projects to look forward to in coming years.
The new TV series “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew” and “The Acolyte” will debut on Disney+ next year, along with the return of “Andor” and “The Bad Batch.”
“Star Wars” lovers will have to wait a little longer for Grogu and “The Mandalorian,” which will likely premiere its fourth season in 2025.