Guillermo del Toro
Jon Kopaloff/WireImage
Guillermo del Toro’s Jabba the Hutt?
Yes, it could have happened.
The filmmaker confirmed during a question-and-answer session presented by Collider that he was once working on a Star Wars film centered on the infamous crime boss who lived on the planet Tatooine (where Luke Skywalker and, before him, his father grew up). Del Toro worked on the project with screenwriter David S. Goyer, who first announced the news on the Happy, Sad, Confused podcast last month.
“There was just a lot of backlog [the scenes] Things that were happening at Lucasfilm back then,” Goyer said on the podcast. “But it’s a cool script.”
In response: Del Toro tweeted then: “That’s right. Can’t say much. Maybe two letters “J” and “BB”, is that three letters?”
Now Del Toro has confirmed that the project was indeed about Jabba.
“We saw the rise and fall of Jabba the Hutt, so I was super happy,” he said during the recent Collider event. “We did a lot of stuff and then it’s not my property, it’s not my money, and then it’s one of those 30 scripts that disappears.” 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 things. We learned.'”
But unfortunately it wasn’t to be. Lucasfilm did not move forward with the project. Del Toro has no hard feelings, however.
“You can never be ungrateful towards life,” he said. “Whatever life throws at you, you can learn something from it. You know, I trust the universe, I do. When something doesn’t happen, I ask, “Why?” I try to have a dialogue with myself. “Why didn’t it happen?” And the further upstream you swim with the universe, the less you realize where you’re going.”
While it’s unclear exactly how long ago Del Toro and Goyer worked on the project, the fact that he didn’t get a chance to direct a Star Wars movie obviously didn’t hurt Del Toro’s career: he did won three Oscars, two of them for “The Shape of Water” (Best Picture). and best director) and one for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (best animated film). For his part, Goyer has been involved in numerous superhero films, including “The Dark Knight” and “The Dark Knight Rises,” “Man of Steel” and “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” as well as “Terminator: Dark Fate.”
Jabba has now appeared in several Star Wars films and television. He was first introduced in 1983’s Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi. It was also later added to Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope when the film was re-released for its 20th anniversary in 1997, via a previously unfinished scene. The character appeared again in 1999’s Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.
Jabba also plays a key role in the plot of the animated film Star Wars: The Clone Wars and appears in several episodes of the subsequent TV series.
Jabba the Hutt Courtesy of Double Take