Chris Weitz Says Christopher McQuarrie, Scott Z. Burns & More Wrote On ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’

The behind-the-scenes story of “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” is almost legendary and likely one day will fall into the “What if?” category of film lore with people dying to read some of the original scripts, drafts, or watch footage that was cut.

READ MORE: Tony Gilroy, Not Christopher McQuarrie, Is Working On The ‘Rogue One’ Reshoots

While the problems on ‘Rogue One’ weren’t as publicly bad as, say, “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” where directors Chris Lord and Phil Lord were fired from the production with only three weeks of the film left to complete and replaced with Ron Howard, there was major, major upheaval as well. Lucasfilm’s penchant for interfering and pushing around its directors also becoming something of a bad trend for the company.

READ MORE: Tony Gilroy Talks ‘Beirut’; Unearthing A Script From 1991 & More [Interview]

On ‘Rogue One,’ director Gareth Edwards was pushed aside in favor of “Michael Clayton” and “The Bourne Legacy” writer/director Tony Gilroy. Gilroy rewrote the film more than once and then was brought on to direct, oversee and manage the extensive reshoots of the film and supervise and lead the post-production edit. Many have assumed Edwards would have been fired had he not agreed to everything and “played ball” with Lucasfilm.

Gilroy himself admitted in interviews earlier this year while promoting “Beirut,” a film he wrote directed by Brad Anderson, that ‘Rogue One’ was a “terrible, troubled mess” when he came onboard officially, some eight months before the film hit theaters in 2016. “[Lucasfilm and the producers] were in so much, terrible, terrible trouble that all you could do was improve their position,” he said at the time.

One of the things lost in all the reporting—and something I reported on way back when—was the fact that several screenwriters took stabs at rewriting the script by Chris Weitz, who rewrote Gary Whitta‘s first draft. First it was Gilroy, then Christopher McQuarrie (“Mission Impossible: Fallout“) —who was rumored to be taking over ‘Rogue One’ when the reality was that it was actually Gilroy— frequent Steven Soderbergh collaborator Scott Z. Burns (“Contagion“) and then back to Gilroy who then assumed more than just writing duties and essentially took over.

And in a recent interview with Chris Weitz, known for his eclectic directing career (“About A Boy,” “The Golden Compass” and “Twilight: New Moon“), the writer-director confirmed all this and even added one writer who made some notes on the screenplay.

“There was a murderers row of screenwriters, myself excluded, who eventually worked on it,” he said. “Gary Whitta did the first draft and then I came in and did a couple of drafts and then after me came Tony Gilroy, Christopher McQuarrie, Scott Burns, I believe David Arndt* had some notes on it, and then Tony Gilroy came back on again. And it’s astonishing to me that, for me, from my point of view, how well it turned out, given how many writers were working on it any one time.”

[editor’s note: pretty sure he means *Michael Arndt, who also wrote the original draft of ‘The Force Awakens,’ but we could be wrong, and or I’ve misheard the name].

“All credit to Gareth Edwards,” Weitz continued, “Because I think what he laid down aesthetically, in terms of the feel of the movie, is really born out.”

Weitz also took credit for the movie’s ending, where, *SPOILER ALERT,* all the characters die. Interestingly enough, it sounds like Weitz and Lucasfilm had to convince Disney‘s Alan Horn and get his approval to end the movie this way. And he also didn’t sound 100% over the moon over the decision according to the way Weitz tells it.

“That is one thing that I will take credit or blame for,” Weitz said of the ending and the deaths of Jynn Erso and her gang of Rogue One cohorts. “I thought they should all die. I think it occurred to Gary and Gareth at one point, but they thought, ‘Oh, Disney will never let us do it.'”

How did the big brass react when he pitched it? “I was in a meeting with Alan Horn, Gareth, Kathleen Kennedy and Kiri Hart from the [‘Star Wars’] story department and Alan kinda said [adopts wary, skeptical voice], ‘Well… I can see how they probably all ought to die because we don’t see them in ‘Star Wars” and inside I was just jumping for joy,” he said. “Which is a bit gruesome, I suppose, but I thought, this was amazing, we get to do this thing. I think it was important to convey the true seriousness of the galactic civil war.”

For Weitz, the filmmaker echoed a sentiment that Simon Pegg recently offered: that he’s kind of scratched the obsessive “Star Wars” itch and can move on with his life.

Weitz continues to be a fan and rattled off some “Star Wars” films he still wants to see but said this: “I want to say this and I hope it’s not corporate treason, but I’m ok with ‘Star Wars,’ now” he explained. “I feel like I’ve laid to rest my obsession, in a good way. Let somebody else freak out about it and get exercised about these fan issues…. We are the kids these films were made for, but we need to let go.”

It’s a good interview, especially for fans that want to dive in deeper to Weitz’s career, especially all the drama that went into the making of “The Golden Compass” and how the studio essentially f*cked that film. Listen to the entire podcast below and if you have any edition of any draft of ‘Rogue One,’ be sure to send it over to me. 😀