Disney brought the Star Wars franchise back to life in 2015 with The Force Awakens. The project—which appeared to be a tough sell at the time—became a financial and critical success, making $2 billion worldwide, and scoring a 93% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. A year after its release, the franchise's first spin-off, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story— directed by Godzilla helmer Gareth Edwards—hit theaters. A prequel to 1977's A New Hope, the movie detailed the journey of the Rebels who stole the Death Star plans, which ultimately allowed Luke Skywalker and his allies to destroy the planet-destroying weapon.
The film starred Felicity Jones as reluctant leader Jyn Erso, daughter of Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen), a scientist who played a pivotal role in the Death Star's creation, and the one responsible for including the failsafe that ultimately secured the Rebels' major victory against the Empire. At Star Wars Celebration 2015, Disney showed a brief concept teaser for it, promising a gritty war-inspired take on the Galaxy Far, Far Away. Once the movie came out, however, the difference between the final product and the initial footage was palpable. Rogue One was still a high-quality product, but it felt considerably lighter in tone compared to what had been originally promised.
Now, one of the film's stars has revealed that the spin-off was subject to constant changes throughout principal photography given its lack of a finished script. Mads Mikkelsen participated in a video for Variety, in which he was tasked with recognizing lines from his filmography. One of the lines featured, "It must be destroyed," was from Rogue One. Upon recognizing it, the Doctor Strange actor revealed the film—which was a box office success—went through a lot of changes throughout its production, going as far as to state he was surprised by how unfinished its screenplay was:
"Yeah, for a Star Wars film, it was surprisingly unfinished in the script. It kept changing, and one would think that was already done. I don't think they ever locked a draft. I think they kept working on it, and improvised, and went back and reshot stuff, and then came up with a better idea."
The actor concluded with: "[It is] kind of livable for a character like mine. I mean, I had my mission. I knew what it was. But, it was obviously tricky for the two young heroes not knowing exactly what they were carrying into a room of baggage. But I think, as I said, it turned out to be a really nice film."
This isn't entirely surprising, given how the 2016 spin-off was widely reported to have gone through extensive reshoots following its principal photography. In March 2016, roughly nine months before its release, The Hollywood Reporter revealed the film was going back behind the camera for reshoots. According to the trade, the decision came about after executives watched an early cut of it, and decided its tone did not match the overall tone of the Star Wars franchise. The film was described as feeling like a "war movie."
A source told the outlet: "This is the closest thing to a prequel ever. This takes place just before A New Hope and leads up to the 10 minutes before that classic film begins. You have to match the tone!" Per the report, though the movie was considered good, it ultimately "didn't measure up to the bar set in terms of four-quadrant appeal."
Entertainment Weekly, meanwhile, revealed the reshoots would last between four to five weeks, and were slated to wrap up days before the 2016 Star Wars Celebration event in London on July 15. One source told the outlet the new round of production was simply meant to add "clarity" to the story and more intimate character moments: "The changes have everything to do with clarity and character development and all take place [as inserts] within scenes we've already shot."
EW's sources pushed back on the idea that more than half of the film would be reshot, stating that, if that were the case, the movie would have had to be pushed back due to its scale: "If we were rewriting the movie and reshooting 40 percent of movie, we would not be finishing in August. People really would be panicking—and changing the release date."
Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy (who also directed The Bourne Legacy) was said to have been brought in to do uncredited rewrites on the film. In August 2016, The Hollywood Reporter stated that Gilroy had become the "driving force" behind the film's "extensive" reshoots, and was allowed to take the lead during the movie's post-production process. However, Girloy's involvement was described as collaborative, with him working side-by-side with Gareth Edwards. As one source put it: "There are not two separate editing rooms; they are all in there with their ideas. Tony's a strong force, but they're all working together."
His uncredited writing appears to have been extensive enough that he was ultimately given a screenwriting credit. As he detailed during an appearance on The Moment With Brian Koppelman podcast (via The Hollywood Reporter): "I came in after the director's cut. I have a screenplay credit in the arbitration that was easily won."
Rogue One director Gareth Edwards, on the other hand, pushed back on the multiple reports surrounding Rogue One's additional photography. Appearing on KCRW's The Business in 2023 (via Variety), he stated there was a lot of inaccuracy surrounding the film's production process and clarified that, though Tony Gilroy did, in fact, contribute to the movie, it was a collaboration between the both of them: "The stuff that's out there on the internet about what happened on that film—there is so much inaccuracy about the whole thing. Tony [Gilroy] came in, and he did a lot of great work, for sure. No doubt about it. But we all worked together until the entire last minute of that movie."
Rogue One: A Star Wars is available to stream on Disney+.
What do you think about Mads Mikkelsen's Rogue One comments? Did you enjoy the film? Let me know in the comments!