Tony Gilroy’s role on ‘Star Wars Rogue One’ explained as it expands for final edit
Fans may have turned out for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but may not be as excited for the next film in the franchise, spinoff Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. In addition to confusing continuity for the general fans (It’s set between Revenge of the Sith and the original 1977 Star Wars film, A New Hope), it seems riddled with extra shoots, changes to the ending and rewrites. Key to all of this is The Bourne Legacy director Tony Gilroy.
Insiders say Gilroy, already an uncredited writer on the upcoming film, has been empowered to take the lead on the recent reshoots, which ran around five weeks and he is said to be “supervising” the edit with input from director Gareth Edwards, who was hired for the Rogue One job after his 2014 Godzilla reboot impressed Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy.
THR chronicled the drama and changes in roles, claiming that Edwards is still in control, stating that “One insider painted the Edwards-Gilroy pairing as collaborative, which should be no surprise: Gilroy, who has a relationship with Kennedy’s producer husband, Frank Marshall, from the Bourne series, also helped Edwards out during the making of Godzilla.”
“There are not two separate editing rooms; they are all in there with their ideas,” says one source close to the production. “Tony’s a strong force, but they’re all working together.”
The news added that the reshoots tackled several issues, according to sources, the ending of the film among them. The Death Star plans heist is central to the story and links the final George Lucas prequel to the original series.
Gilroy was a writer on 2002’s The Bourne Identity, helping Marshall when the producer took over the film from director Doug Liman.
The first standalone film stars Felicity Jones as a new character named Jyn Erso. Erso is key to the rebels’ plan to steal the Death Star plans, the same plans carried by Princess Leia in the opening of A New Hope.
An appearance by Darth Vader has been confirmed. Forest Whitaker takes center stage as a mysterious character and Jones will be join by a new batch of actors primed for stardom: Jiang Wen, Donnie Yen, Riz Ahmed and Diego Luna.
Ben Mendelsohn is the new character walking in the long white cape. The was no reveal of Hannibal star Mads Mikkelsen and little else in the way of plot.
Fans get their yearly dose of Star Wars as Rogue One arrives in theaters on December 16, 2016.
