Movies

Taika Waititi making Next Goal Wins before Thor 4


As one of the freshest and most idiosyncratic voices on the current movie scene, announcements of Taika Waititi working on a new film—any film, really—are happy tidings. Hence the current genuine good vibrations in the industry just from a report that Waititi has a new original project in the works at Fox Searchlight.

Deadline has confirmed that the film will be called Next Goal Wins, and that it’s based on the absolutely brilliant 2014 footie doco of the same name that followed Dutch coach Thomas Rongen trying to turn the American Samoa soccer team into winners.

Check out the trailer for the documentary below, and you’ll be able to tell how terrific a fit for the movie version Waititi is already…

Waititi will write and direct Next Goal Wins, and the plan is for it shoot later this fall, putting it ahead of Thor: Love And Thunder as his next film. This is not wholly a surprise given Love And Thunder is scheduled for a November 2021 release date, and Waititi has already finished his latest movie, the hotly anticipated Jojo Rabbit. Indeed, Jojo is also a Fox Searchlight production, which makes the prestige label an unsurprising fit for Waititi’s new project.

Of course for genre fans, Waititi made a recent splash at San Diego Comic-Con last month where he and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige made the surprise announcement of a fourth Thor movie that would not only see Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson reprise their characters from Waititi’s popular Thor: Ragnarok (2017) but would also feature Natalie Portman’s return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Jane Foster, aka the new Thor. This is based on a comic book story from the last decade that turned Jane into the only other person worthy enough to be Thor, but Waititi being able to convince Portman to return to a franchise that she had some mixed feelings on was clearly a surprise. Then again who doesn’t want to helm Mjölnir and be their own superhero?

Still, Waititi has his roots in eccentric indie productions like What We Do In the Shadows and Hunt For The Wilderpeople. Jojo Rabbit follows in that tradition with a concept that will likely prove to be a high-wire act: a young boy in Nazi Germany must overcome his loneliness and shyness during the Second World War by creating an imaginary friend… in the image of Adolf Hitler (who will be played by Waititi himself). Clearly a movie not afraid to take risks, the film also stars Scarlett Johansson and Sam Rockwell, and is about to begin its awards season rollout next month at the Toronto International Film Festival. 



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