Rumors have been circulating for a little while that Disney is courting Taika Waititi to make a Star Wars movie. Following the success of Thor: Ragnarok and his involvement in The Mandalorian, this seems like it would be a great move for Disney. While nothing is official yet, recent interviews with Waititi suggest that (while he'd love to do it) he thinks it could be a bad idea career-wise to direct a Star Wars movie.While clarifying some of his previous statements on the matter, Waititi remarked, almost off-handedly, “If it was right. I would want to do any kind of movie if it made sense, and if it felt not like career suicide.” The interview doesn't spend any more time on the point, instead transitioning to his attachment to the Akira live-action remake, so it’s hard to tell how serious the comment is.Related: Rise Of Skywalker Being Bad Isn’t Last Jedi’s Fault (It’s Abrams & Disney)Regardless of how seriously it was meant, Taika Waititi may be right. If not suicide, then taking on the director’s chair on a Star Wars movie seems like playing Russian Roulette with your career, especially when considering the behind the scenes madness that’s taken place with many of the Disney Star Wars movies. Between the pressures of working on such a large project for such a big studio and how difficult the fandom can be to please, a Star Wars film is going to put any director through the wringer.josh-trank-fantastic-fourThe first signs of this chaotic relationship between the Star Wars franchise and directors came from the roller coaster of working with Josh Trank. In 2014, Trank was announced to be directing one of the stand-alone Star Wars films, but the fallout from his Fantastic Four movie led to him leaving the project a year later. While the official story is that he left to focus on smaller movies, the poor reception to Fantastic Four and his disputes with Fox over that movie led many to conclude that Disney fired him from the project.There were more early signs from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Though Gareth Edwards officially has the sole directing credit, the movie when through extensive reshoots, mostly directed by one of the screenwriters, Tony Gilroy. While the movie itself was pretty well-received, this hints at tension between Lucasfilm and Edwards that went beyond pre-production and into greatly changing a movie that had already been shot.Then came Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who were riding high when they were hired to direct Solo: A Star Wars Story in 2015 from having made both The Lego Movie and 22 Jump Street the previous year. The directing duo was fired in June 2017, several months into production. The kicker here was that most of the movie had been shot already, and the “creative differences” behind the break were about shooting style, something that should have been obvious from the beginning. Ron Howard was brought in to direct, and reshoots overhauled the movie so much that it became one of the most expensive movies ever made and a box office flop.Just a few months later, in September 2017, Episode IX began to run into trouble. After his movie The Book of Henry became a critical disaster, Colin Trevorrow left Episode IX, again over “creative differences.” Whether it was Trevorrow or Disney behind the change, this left Disney scrambling to find a replacement, eventually bringing J. J. Abrams back to direct the final movie in the Skywalker Saga.Related: Star Wars: Colin Trevorrow Is the Real Winner of the Episode IX Script Leakrian johnson last jedi All of this happened before the release of the movie that tore the Star Wars fandom apart, The Last Jedi. Almost immediately after its release, Episode VIII sharply divided Star Wars fans, with many of those who hated the movie sending abuse at writer/director Rian Johnson over everything from the diversity of the cast to the movie’s unwillingness to embrace Star Wars nostalgia.Though Johnson was announced as the writer for a new Star Wars trilogy and director for at least one of the movies a month before The Last Jedi released, there’s been little news on that front. Regardless of whether or not Disney would want him back following the backlash, with the success of Knives Out and the announcement that a sequel has been green-lit, it seems unlikely that Johnson's Star Wars trilogy is going to be coming any time soon, if at all.And finally, we have D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, who were supposed to go from showrunners of Game of Thrones to developers of yet another Star Wars trilogy. Between taking a nine-figure production deal with Netflix and the fallout over the Game of Thrones finale, however, they decided to leave the project. There are reports that they specifically cited “toxic fandom” as the reason why they left, not wanting to face with Star Wars what they already had to deal with from Game of Thrones.Related: The Rise of Skywalker Makes It Clear Star Wars NEEDS Rian JohnsonIt's clear that Waititi has had a negative outlook on directing Star Wars for a while. For example, in 2017 he tweeted this:

Posted around the time of the Solo debacle, Waititi laughs at the idea of working on a Star Wars movie and pokes fun at the drama surrounding other directors attached to the franchise. He may have changed his mind, having directed and acted in The Mandalorian in the years since, but they do give some context to the "career suicide" part of his recent remarks.

Given the track record of directors who have taken on a Star Wars movie since the Disney acquisition only to be fired or have to face intense scrutiny from fans, it's hard to blame anyone for not taking the job. While making a Star Wars movie may be a dream for many directors, the pressure of working on such a large project and dealing with the fanbase have made it a risky professional move to make, especially for someone young and up-and-coming.

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