Guillermo del Toro reveals axed Star Wars movie was based on fan-favourite villain

Mexican filmmaker was set to take on the backstory of intergalactic crime lord Jabba the Hutt

Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro has revealed the subject of his ill-fated Star Wars movie.

The Mexican filmmaker recently confirmed on social media that he was set to direct a Star Wars project written by Batman Begins scribe David S Goyer.

Del Toro teased on X/Twitter at the time: “Can’t say much. Maybe two letters ‘J’ and ‘BB’ is that three letters?”

In a new interview with Collider, the Shape of Water director revealed that the film was based on “the rise and fall of Jabba the Hutt”.

Jabba is, of course, the huge, slug-like creature who captures Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) in 1983’s Return of the Jedi.

“Always, in the last moment, things go away. I’ve had it happen many, many, many times,” del Toro said of the screenplay.

“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.”

He continued: “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 learnt 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.”

Goyer revealed his un-produced Star Wars story on the Happy Sad Confused podcast last month, noting that the project came to fruition and was axed around four years ago.

“There was a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff going on at Lucasfilm at the time. It’s a cool script… you have to ask him about it,” he said.

While speaking to del Toro for The Independent last year, Clarisse Loughrey noted that the director’s career is perhaps just as defined by the films he hasn’t made, as the films he has – such as an adaptation of HP Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness.

“Guillermo del Toro’s unrealised projects” even has its own Wikipedia page.

“Look, we are like fishermen,” the director told Loughrey. “We always lie and say that the best one is the one that got away. You never know. You are like the fool in the tarot cards – just go motley into the precipice, you know? Followed by the yapping dog of your hopes.”