Guillermo del Toro speaks on his jettisoned Star Wars spin-off of Jabba the Hutt

Last Updated on October 12, 2023

While Disney+ is currently telling the story of Anakin Skywalker’s former padawan in Ahsoka, the Star Wars universe continues to find footing on the future of its feature films. Kathleen Kennedy has played red light/green light with several proposed projects at Lucasfilm, including Damon Lindelof‘s former film, a Taika Waititi film, Patty Jenkins’ Rogue Squadron film and Rian Johnson trilogy, which was announced around the release of 2017’s The Last Jedi. Recently, it has been revealed that Academy Award-winning director Guillermo del Toro was working with David S. Goyer on a Star Wars movie that centered on Jabba the Hutt’s rise to power.

Deadline reports that del Toro recently described his experience in developing the Jabba the Hutt film. In an interview with Collider, the Shape of Water director stated, “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.’ 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.”

His Jabba film was ultimately scrapped. del Toro is no stranger to heartbreak in his Hollywood career as he was also not given a third Hellboy film, which was a property he was passionate about, and he also commented in the interview about why he could’t return for the Pacific Rim sequel, “We were getting ready to do it, it was different from the first, but it had a continuation of many of the things that I was trying to do. Then what happened is—I mean, this is why life’s crazy, right?—they had to give a deposit for the stages at 5 p.m. or we would lose the stages in Toronto for many months.” He mentioned that the studio’s tardiness on securing soundstages for the movie prevented him from working it into his schedule. When they told him he could film it in China, del Toro refused since he was committed to filming The Shape of Water.