Michael Waldron has had quite the last 24 months. Thanks to his work on Rick and Morty, he landed the job as head writer on Marvel Studios’ upcoming Disney+ series Loki. And thanks to his work on Loki, Marvel asked him to take point on screenplay duties on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness for director Sam Raimi. And somewhere in there, he also landed a plum gig: writing a brand new Star Wars movie for producer Kevin Feige.
The Star Wars franchise has been fairly closed off since Disney purchased Lucasfilm, as they attempted to take a two-pronged approach to the future: a new sequel trilogy that would connect to the Skywalker saga, and spinoff movies that would fill in gaps in the universe. The sequel trilogy performed excellently, but the spinoff movies hit a bit of a snag when Solo: A Star Wars Story underperformed at the box office. Currently the next Star Wars movie on the docket is a film called Rogue Squadron to be directed by Patty Jenkins, and there are a couple of other curiosities in the works although details are under lock and key: a movie to be directed by Taika Waititi, and a movie based on an idea by Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige that Feige will producer.
It’s the latter where Waldron comes in, as he was tapped to write this secret Star Wars movie for Feige and Lucasfilm. So when Collider’s Steve Weintraub spoke with Waldron recently during an extended, exclusive interview, he asked the writer about his Star Wars movie. Understandably he was tight-lipped on details, but couldn’t contain his excitement:
“Look, that's a very exciting thing. My life has been very wrapped up in Doctor Strange and in Loki. I love Star Wars and that's really exciting. I'm excited to keep working with Kevin and I'm excited to work with Lucasfilm and Kathy Kennedy. I mean, it's like, are you kidding me? They've made all my favorite movies. So yeah, I'm lucky and hopefully [Loki and Doctor Strange 2] don’t come out and people don't hate it and say, ‘Wait a minute, he can't do this.’”
Waldron said it’s “early days” on the project, adding that he and Feige are “excited to get going” but declined to offer specifics in terms of how far along the script is. But he did answer one key question: which is better, A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back?
“Oh wow. I mean, I would put Empire as number one. I love A New Hope, but Empire has the love story. It's got the Rebel fleet, the Han and Leia theme, which is my favorite musical cue in the whole thing, and it's got the tragedy. The gang is split up. Yeah, that's my favorite. It's not a very original answer. But I think Empire Strikes Back is a perfect blockbuster movie.”
But his love for A New Hope runs deep largely thanks to C-3P0:
“Where A New Hope gets me is A New Hope has the stuff with 3PO and R2 at the beginning, which I love. I'm a big 3PO guy. I love 3PO, and so he's got a lot to do in the first act of A New Hope and I always love the first part of A New Hope because of that.”
When Loki debuts on Disney+ on Wednesday, June 9th we’ll have a bit more of an idea of who Waldron is as a writer, but thus far his past work bodes well: he wrote the noteworthy Rick and Morty Season 4 episode “The Old Man and the Seat.”
Look for our full interview with Waldron on Collider soon.