Rebels Report has a nice overview of the Rogue One imeline – what we know, at least.
The Force Awakens roundup: Boyega’s topical jogging gear, Weekends merch features new trooper
→ Star Wars Weekends are revving up at Disney World in Orlando, and there’s an Episode VII tee on sale there that actually features the new stormtrooper. It comes in men’s, women’s and kid’s sizes.
→ Rumor corner: What is the green planet? (I have some doubts, due mainly to a certain actor’s flippancy with something else that recently came up, but spoilers. Sigh.) On that note, it appears that TFA’s water scenes may have been filmed in England’s Lake District National Park.
→ Lucasfilm movies will be featured at D23 Expo this year. This obviously isn’t a surprise, and clearly The Force Awakens will be the priority, but it may be the first chance for something to go wide on Rogue One – though D23 is only two weeks after Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation drops on July 31, which could still be cutting it a bit close.
Rumor: Diego Luna joins Rogue One
Variety is reporting that Diego Luna has landed a role in Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One, the first Star Wars Anthology film.
Luna will play a Rebel soldier, Variety says. We know the film is an ensemble about Rebels stealing the Death Star plans shortly before A New Hope. The film’s only confirmed cast member remains Felicity Jones, but Riz Ahmed and Ben Mendelsohn have also been subjects of rumors from the trades.
Luna’s previous credits include Elysium, Milk and the animated The Book of Life.
Riz Ahmed, Sam Claflin in talks to join Rogue One?
Badass Digest reports that Nightcrawler’s Riz Ahmed is in talks to join the Rogue One ensemble. They also compare the film to Dirty Dozen and Magnificent Seven – in the sense that we can expect a sizable main cast – so I expect we’ll be seeing quite a few new names before filming begins in a few months. Hell, not long after the Ahmed news dropped, The Wrap reported that Sam Claflin (The Hunger Games) “is being eyed” for a role.
Felicity Jones is so far the only announced cast member for the film, but we’ve also heard that Ben Mendelsohn is in play. The film features a “band of resistance fighters” who steal the Death Star plans, we learned on Sunday.
Celebration Anaheim: Gareth Edwards, Rogue One and the ‘Anthology’ films
We got a decent look ahead at Rogue One today, as Lucasfilm gave us a description and a brief teaser trailer for Rogue One. We even got an official name for what we’ve been calling ‘spinoffs’ and ‘standalones:’ They’ll be ‘Anthology’ movies. The panel consisted of Pablo Hidaldo (doing his best Letterman act,) Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, Story Group lead Kiri Hart, director Gareth Edwards and ILM’s John Knoll, who originated the idea.
The trailer isn’t online yet and isn’t likely to (not officially, anyway) but here’s the description:
A band of resistance fighters unite for a daring mission to steal the Death Star plans in Star Wars Anthology film, Rogue One.
Felicity Jones’ character is a Rebel soldier, and it’s set in the ROTS/ANH gap, though closer to ANH.
The teaser, which was produced by ILM since they won’t start filming until the summer, featured a pan across a forest, a TIE fighter, and a glimpse at the Death Star through the atmosphere. The voiceover was Obi-Wan’s lines about the Jedi from A New Hope, and “the absence of the Jedi is omnipresent in the film,” Edwards said. “It comes down to a group of individuals who don’t have magical powers that have to somehow bring hope to the galaxy.”
This will be very much a war movie, and the crew has people who’ve worked on Zero Dark Thirty, Saving Private Ryan, and Blackhawk Down. Edwards said he doubts he’ll ever be able to work with so many high caliber people again; Folks will drop anything to come work on Star Wars.
Pablo asked Edwards about his ‘geek cred,’ and Edwards revealed that he spent his 30th birthday going to Tunisia – even drinking blue milk at the Hotel Sidi Driss, where the Lars kitchen was filmed. There were pictures. They were adorable,
Josh Trank, who’s helming the next Anthology film, was “under the weather,” so we didn’t get anything for that.
Rogue One will be released in IMAX
Rogue One will be released in IMAX. Just like The Force Awakens! Shocking.
Rumor: A few (possible) details on Rogue One
Rumor: A few details on Rogue One. Making Star Wars has done some digging; Possible spoilers are mild at best.
Directors Gareth Edwards, Josh Trank to talk standalones at Celebration Anaheim
Rogue One director Gareth Edwards and Spin-off #2 director Josh Trank will talk Star Wars with Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy, Kiri Hart and Pablo Hidalgo on Sunday morning at Celebration. Dare we hope to actually learn something about their films?
Report: Ben Mendelsohn “circling” Rogue One
Deadline says that Ben Mendelsohn is “circling a lead role” for Rogue One. The Australian character actor has had a number of roles in Hollywood, including The Dark Knight Rises and The Place Beyond the Pines.
The only confirmed cast member for Rogue One is Felicity Jones. Other actors who have been linked to the project in the trades are Aaron Paul and Edgar Ramirez. The Gareth Edwards-directed film will begin filming at Pinewood this summer for a December 2016 release.
Lucasfilm can’t market Rogue One until after the new Mission Impossible movie comes out
The new Mission Impossible movie is titled Rogue Nation. Paramount cleared their title with the MPAA in January, so they could have gone after Lucasfilm/Disney, but instead the companies agreed not to market Rogue One until after this summer, per The Hollywood Reporter.
Rogue Nation hits July 31; It moved up from December 25 this year to avoid… You guessed it… Episode VII. Rogue One isn’t due until December 2016.
I doubt they were going to do much marketing for the movie in any case – and an exception was made for Celebration, which is pretty much the only place I’d expect anything anyway. I wonder if this means we won’t get a filming or further cast announcement from StarWars.com, but I’m not sure what they consider ‘marketing’ in that case. (I fully expect they’ll drop it all at Anaheim…)