Guillermo del Toro was attached to direct a Star Wars movie – and he's shared the most cryptic tease imaginable

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J + BB = ???

Guillermo del Toro
(Image credit: Vivien Killilea/Getty Images)

Writer David S. Goyer has revealed that director Guillermo del Toro was attached to helm a Star Wars film as recently as 2019. Del Toro has responded in kind – by teasing the scrapped project in the most cryptic way possible.

On the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Goyer told host Josh Horowitz: "I wrote an unproduced Star Wars movie that Guillermo del Toro was going to direct."

He added: "It was about four years ago. I also wrote a ‘scriptment’ for an origins of the Jedi story… that took place 25,000 years before the first Star Wars film."

On Twitter – no, I’m not calling it X – del Toro responded, "True. Can't say much. Maybe two letters  ‘J’ and BB.’ Is that three letters?"

Good luck trying to figure that one out. BB could, of course, refer to the droid line that saw everyone’s favorite sequel ball of energy, BB-8, emerge into the galaxy. J could be anything from Jedi to Jar Jar to Jedha. There sure are a lot of Js in Star Wars, so it’s almost impossible to zero in on anything specific.

Del Toro, the king of weird and wonderful worldbuilding, would surely have been a no-brainer for a galaxy far, far away. Imagine a slice of Star Wars horror, or something as darkly whimsical as Pinocchio. Chalk this up as one of cinema’s greatest what-ifs.

Addressing why it wasn’t made, Goyer said: "There was a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff going on at Lucasfilm at the time. It was a cool script."

Try and avoid the psychic damage this news is giving you by cooling yourself off with the upcoming Star Wars movies that are happening. 

Bradley Russell
Bradley Russell
Senior Entertainment Writer

I'm the Senior Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, focusing on news, features, and interviews with some of the biggest names in film and TV. On-site, you'll find me marveling at Marvel and providing analysis and room temperature takes on the newest films, Star Wars and, of course, anime. Outside of GR, I love getting lost in a good 100-hour JRPG, Warzone, and kicking back on the (virtual) field with Football Manager. My work has also been featured in OPM, FourFourTwo, and Game Revolution.