Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is still six months away, but it's already making big headlines. Unfortunately, those headlines are probably not the kind of which Disney is terribly fond.
Reports that Disney is unhappy with the film and that it is undergoing extensive reshoots have been widely reported in the past week.
Then came the counter-claims. EW reported that, while reshoots are happening (and are actually a fairly normal occurrence for most films these days), it wasn't a sign that Disney lacked faith in the project. Most of the additional shots are described as being "a lot of talking in cockpits," with additional footage being inserted into already-completed scenes.
Action scenes aren't being reshot, the site reports. EW says claims that Disney attempting to change the film's darker tone is unfounded, but that the film is bringing in Tony Gilroy, the writer and director who has previously worked on the Bourne series of action films. He will be making changes to the screenplay as well as aiding director Gareth Edwards with the reshoots, which are said to be happening over the course of several weeks.
That looked to be the end of the story, but reports that the reshoots are far from normal still continue to flourish across the web. Latino Review says that, contrary to what EW reports, the Rogue One reshoots are in fact changing the tone of the film as well as the development of the movie's various characters. The site continues to report the initial claim that nearly half of Rogue One is being reshot.
"This is not par for the course," the site writes. "This is not run of the mill. This is huge, and it means that LucasFilm wants some drastic changes."
So, who's right? It's hard to say. A source quoted in EW's story seems to indicate that the idea of 40 percent of the film being redone is absurd.
"If we were rewriting the movie and reshooting 40 percent of movie, we would not be finishing in August," a source on the production crew tells EW. "People really would be panicking — and changing the release date."
EW reports that the film's timeline is actually well ahead of that of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The current plan is for filming to wrap up in August, with the film's score being completed in September.
Some of the fear about Rogue One seems to rise from the reception to Edwards' last film, Godzilla. That movie was praised for some impressive visuals and a great sense of scale, but lauded by critics for boring human characters that made up the majority of the film. Might Rogue One suffer from a similar problem?
It's hard to say. Reshoots are normal for most big budget blockbusters, but if the production team is really redoing 40 to 50 percent of the movie, fans might have a reason to be worried. All will be revealed when Rogue One lands in theaters on Dec. 16.
