It’s been a big week for news about “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” the first big “Star Wars” spin-off movie. Following in the footsteps of the record-breaking success of “The Force Awakens,” hopes were high, but the new film was hit by a wave of recent bad buzz, suggesting that Disney executives were unhappy with the film and that “Michael Clayton” helmer Tony Gilroy had been brought on to help with extensive reshoots (something that holds up with what we were hearing at the same time).
One person that we didn’t hear from during this time was director Gareth Edwards. The “Godzilla” helmer has a very distinctive take on the blockbuster — his last film at times felt as much art movie as tentpole — and we’d wondered if the news felt that he was getting pushed or his vision being compromised. But according to a new Entertainment Weekly story, that’s not the case at all.
“It was always part of the plan to do reshoots,” Edwards says, reflecting something that’s true of basically every big-budget movie. “We always knew we were coming back somewhere to do stuff. We just didn’t know what it would be until we started sculpting the film in the edit.”
He acknowledges that the planning to get a large cast together again has been a “logistical nightmare,” and suggests “that’s why I think it’s been blown out of proportion a little bit.” Meanwhile, Kathleen Kennedy, the producer of the films, says that the film will remain mostly what was intended. “There’s nothing about the story that’s changing, with a few things that we’re picking up in additional photography. I think that’s the most important thing, to reassure fans that it’s the movie we intended to make.” And Edwards agrees that the tone has “not in any way been compromised.”
Truth, or spin? Head over to EW for more, including the debate about whether the film will include the famous ‘opening crawl.’ And you can see the movie in theaters from December 16th and judge for yourself.