Could Disney actually be unhappy with how the next Star Wars movie, Rogue One, currently looks? That was the bold headline over the Memorial Day weekend from the New York Post.
According to the Post‘s Emily Smith, Disney executives were not happy with what they saw from a first cut of the film and have ordered extensive reshoots. Considering how impressive the trailer for Rogue One upon its release in early April, this is a surprising development, if true. Of course, it’s also a cautionary note not to project a teaser onto the merits of an overall film. The trailer will likely have the best parts from the movie that have either been filmed or that producers are willing to reveal.
In these days of quick-trigger reactions online, it’s often typical for movie bloggers and fans to claim panic when a movie schedules reshoots. But asking for more footage to be shot or for scenes to be reshot doesn’t necessarily mean the movie is bad. Maybe the director didn’t get the coverage he wanted for a certain scene. Or while editing, it was realized that a transitional scene was needed. Maybe a storyline became clearer in editing and needs to be punched up. Marvel, for instance, specifically sets time in their schedules and budgets for reshoots. They’re a regular part of business for the studio.
That appears to be the case, based on what a Disney source told Smith:
“The filmmaking team and the studio always anticipated additional shooting and second unit work to make the film the absolute best it can be, and the actors were aware there would be additional shooting. Coming off ‘The Force Awakens,’ there’s an incredibly high bar for this movie and we have a responsibility to the franchise and to the fans to deliver the best possible movie we can.”
But if Smith’s report is to be believed, the reshoots for Rogue One are presumably happening because executives don’t like the darker tone director Gareth Edwards has created for the film. If you saw Edwards’ 2014 Godzilla, that movie took a while to get going and took a long time to give the audience a payoff in seeing the iconic monster. Could similar issues be happening with Rogue One? Maybe Edwards needs to get to the good stuff a little bit faster. Or maybe the studio didn’t respond to a less-than-heroic character in thief Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) being the protagonist of the story. This is total speculation on our part, and isn’t even addressed in the Post article.
Disney is certainly justified in wanting a crowd-pleaser from the latest installment in the Star Wars saga. For an anthology tale involving unfamiliar characters in the Star Wars mythology, the story can’t necessarily follow similar beats or allude too much to characters from the original trilogy, as The Force Awakens did. Actually, since Rogue One takes place before Episode IV: A New Hope, nodding to familiar characters isn’t very likely at all. But maybe the studio is looking for something a bit more fun?
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, also starring Forest Whitaker, Ben Mendelsohn, Mads Mikkelsen and Diego Luna, is scheduled for a Dec. 16 release.
