Category Archives: Rogue One

Rogue One Reaches Another Box Office Milestone

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Via Gamespot.com:

After reaching $500 million last week, Star Wars: Rogue One has now made more than $800 million worldwide. As reported by Empire, the sci-fi spinoff pulled in $801.9 million over its first 18 days following its release on December 16.

In the US, Rogue One has made $440 million, with international markets accounting for $361 million. The movie is scheduled to open in China, the world’s second-largest movie market, on January 13. The film is expected to cross $1 billion once it opens there.

By comparison, 2015’s The Force Awakens ended its theatrical run with $2.068 billion, making it the third highest-grossing movie in history. Only Titanic ($2.19 billion)and Avatar ($2.78 billion) made more money than The Force Awakens.

Disney had a massively successful 2016. The company’s movies collectively made more than $7 billion at the global box office during the year, which set a new industry record. Captain America: Civil War, Finding Dory, and Zootopia all made over $1 billion each, while The Jungle Book took in $966 million.

The next Star Wars movie is this December’s Episode VIII. That will be followed up by a Han Solo movie in 2018.

‘Rogue One’ Ends 2016 With A Bang

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Via Forbes.com:

It took Rogue One: A Star Wars Story a sad and shameful 16 days to pass $400 million domestic. It took two days longer than The Avengers (Gah!), six days longer than Jurassic World (Eeek!), and it took twice as long as The Force Awakens (Aaaaahhhh!!!). Oh, and it snagged around $49m over its third Fri-Sun weekend, giving it the fifth-biggest third weekend of all time, behind Jurassic World ($54.4m), The Avengers ($55.6m), Avatar ($68.4m) and The Force Awakens ($90.24m). Yes, it’s starting to trail Avatar so the end is clearly nigh.

On a serious note, and in the realm of useless trivia, Walt Disney now owns 11 out of the top 20 biggest “third weekends.” The film dropped just 23% in its third weekend, which is way above the 39% third-weekend drop for The Force Awakens last year. Yes, Christmas and New Year’s fell on different days, and yes other “big” December releases held better over the last holiday weekend of the year, but that’s still a terrific hold when you’re dealing with numbers this large. The film will end today with over/under $425m domestic, leapfrogging to 14th on the all-time grossers list (sorry, Hunger Games: Catching Fire).

If it makes $63.5 million over the Fri-Mon holiday, we’re looking at a just under $440m 18-day cume, putting it just between E.T. ($435m) and Shrek 2 ($441m). And while it’s entirely possible that it’ll drop dead in the new year, there is no historical precedent for that save maybe The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. That Peter Jackson prequel trilogy finale earned $220 million by the end of its third weekend from a $90m Wed-Sun debut and then $255m total (it also earned $950m worldwide, so weep not for the Shire). Even that doomsday scenario gives the film a just-under $500m domestic total.

Anything leggier than that gives the film a real shot at $550 million domestic. As I noted yesterday, recent history paints a pretty rosy picture for Rogue One. Warner’s Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011), 20th Century Fox’s Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (2011), Fox’s The Family Stone (2005) and Universal’s King Kong (2005) all earned between 19% (Kong) and 26% (Holmes and Chipmunks) of their business after the New Year’s holiday. Even I Am Legend (2007) earned 19% of its money after the New Year’s weekend.

So using those “Christmas fell on a Sunday” examples, we may be looking at around $550-$600 million domestic by the end. Yes, that may end up being hyperbole, as historical precedent isn’t a crystal ball into the future. But there is no evidence thus far that it’s playing like anything other than a well-liked and leggy “big” December release. We’ll know more tomorrow, but I can’t see a scenario at the moment where Rogue One doesn’t end up one of the very biggest domestic hits of all time and the biggest movie if the year worldwide.

Rogue One Filmmakers Address Choice To Bring Back Classic Characters

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Via Independent.co.uk:
*WARNING: SPOILERS FOR ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY AHEAD*

If there was one great secret surrounding the release of the first of the planned Star Wars anthology films, it was the revelation Rogue One bore an even stronger connection to the franchise’s past than previously thought.

Rogue One, of course, follows a wayward band of Rebel fighters brought together for one improbable mission: steal the plans for the Death Star. These events, of course, directly link into the first scenes of A New Hope; when Princess Leia is seen concealing the plans in R2-D2 before she’s captured by the Galactic Empire.

What had been kept hidden, however, was that two iconic characters from A New Hope itself would actually be brought back through the magic of CGI: Peter Cushing’s Grand Moff Tarkin and Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia.

Gareth Edwards defended the film’s risky manoeuvre in the Radio Times, stating: “We were talking about it, and you sort of lay out the movie, and as you start laying it you go, you know what, you’ve gotta have these certain characters in there, and I dunno how we’d do it. Like, what do we do? Do we cast someone who looks like them? Do we not have them? Do we just hear about them?”

He continued, “You know, to be honest, a lot of people were nervous the whole time, like, is this gonna happen? And then we went all or nothing in.”

“A lot of us got into the industry because of Star Wars, and we all have this love of the original source material,” John Knoll, the chief creative officer at Industrial Light & Magic and a visual effects supervisor on Rogue One told The New York Times; arguing that the CGI effects are, “in the spirit of what a lot of Star Wars has done in the past.”

“If he’s not in the movie, we’re going to have to explain why he’s not in the movie,” added Kiri Hart, a Lucasfilm story development executive and Rogue One co-producer. “This is kind of his thing.”

The effect was achieved by using English actor Guy Henry (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One and Two, Holby City) during principal photography, as he possesses a similar build and stature as Cushing’s, who passed away in 1994, and could speak in a similar manner.

Henry wore motion capture materials on his head, so that his face could eventually be replaced with a digital likeness of Cushing’s; though the team did have a back up plan in place in case things didn’t work out, either transferring lines to other characters or having Tarkin appear only in hologram communications.

Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic state the re-creation of Cushing was done entirely with the approval of the actor’s estate; though they were well aware of the potential ethical “slippery slope” involved in bringing back the dead through a digital likeness, Knoll doesn’t believe this has opened the door to the technique being abused in the future.

“I don’t imagine that happening,” Mr. Knoll said. “This was done for very solid and defendable story reasons. This is a character that is very important to telling this kind of story. It is extremely labour-intensive and expensive to do. I don’t imagine anybody engaging in this kind of thing in a casual manner.”

Knoll stressed the same importance when it came to re-creating Carrie Fisher (who passed away on 27 December)’s Princess Leia, by using actor Ingvild Deila and a digital likeness of Leia based on footage from A New Hope.

“To deliver on that moment of hopefulness, that is really underscored by the fact that you do get to see her face,” Hart stressed. “That’s the best possible use of effects, to enhance the meaning and the emotion of the experience for the viewer.”

Which Rogue One Star Has Never Seen a Star Wars Movie?

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Via Movieweb.com:

It’s no surprise that the Star Wars spin-off Rogue One is a bona fide box office hit. Earlier this week, it passed $600 million at the worldwide box office. The franchise is one of the most beloved in cinematic history, with all eight movies released so far earning a whopping $3.5 billion domestically and $7.3 billion worldwide. With all that being said, it’s quite surprising to learn that one of the Rogue One stars, Wen Jiang, has never seen any Star Wars movie before.
The news comes from director Gareth Edwards, who revealed in this juiy bit of gossip in a lengthy conversation on Empire with the entire cast. The director says that Wen Jiang’s character Baze Malbus, and his longtime friend Chirrut Imwe (Donnie Yen) are inspired by characters from the Akira Kurosawa classic The Hidden Fortress. Here’s what the director had to say about these characters, before dropping the bombshell that Wen Jiang has never seen a Star Wars movie before.

“It was definitely a deliberate thing to have diverse characters. Because Star Wars is so diverse – they have walking carpets and droids. It’s about as diverse as it gets. But what happened is things evolved. Like, you know, you’ve got Star Wars and you’ve got to make a film [set just] before it. So what do you do? One of the things you can do is look at the things that inspired George and go back to them and see if you can branch off in a different direction. One of the main things that inspired him was Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress. And there were two characters in particular that inspired C-3PO and R2D2, and they were these Japanese slave-servants who bickered all the time. And I was thinking, ‘why don’t we just do that but without making them robots?’ So that started off being Baze and Chirrut. It feels right that there’d be Asian characters in Star Wars, because it’s got such Asian influences. And because it’s Star Wars, you can kind of go for anyone: ‘Who are the best Asian actors in the world?’ Though, what’s funny is, Jiang Wen, who plays Baze, has never seen Star Wars in his life.”

Gareth Edwards revealed that he didn’t want Wen Jiang to watch Star Wars during the production, because he thought it’d be funny if he got to the world premiere and one of his stars had never seen a Star Wars movie before. As it turns out, there is a very good reason that Wen Jiang has never seen Star Wars, since he grew up in a much different time in China. Here’s what the actor had to say below, revealing he plans to fill his gap in Star Wars knowledge soon.

“I know nothing about them. Because when I grew up, there were no American movies in China. That was Cold War time, so no Star Wars. Now there’s no Cold War, we can have Star Wars. So I will see it after I finish this movie, from beginning to end.”

Given how Rogue One ends, it’s possible we may never see Wen Jiang’s Baze Malbus again, but it’s also possible that he could return in future spin-offs set before the events of Rogue One, or in the animated TV series Star Wars: The Clone Wars. We reported earlier this month that Forest Whitaker will return to provide the voice for his Rogue One: A Star Wars Story character Saw Gerrera in an upcoming episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which is set several years before the events of Rogue One. Hopefully we’ll find out more about whether or not LucasFilm has plans to bring back Baze Malbus or any of the other Rogue One characters in the near future.

Another Rogue One Character in Star Wars Rebels??

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Via Themarysue.com:
We already know that we’ll be getting a ton more Saw Gerrera via Disney XD’s Star Wars Rebels and that Forest Whitaker, who played him in Rogue One, will be voicing the character. It’s also quite possible that another rebel we got to know in Rogue One could be making their way to the small screen.

According to CBR.com, Pablo Hidalgo’s Star Wars: Rogue One: The Ultimate Visual Guide links Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor to the Star Wars Rebels universe. In the book, it says that “one of Andor’s ‘operational aliases’ is listed as ‘FULCRUM,’ a ‘Recruitment agent in Albarrio sector.’ That codename has been used twice before on Rebels for secret informants; it was originally the codename of Ahsoka Tano and has since been taken on by Imperial Agent Kallus.”

Since Star Wars Rebels takes place five years before A New Hope while Rogue One comes right before it, we know that somewhere between Rebels Season Three and Rogue One, Cassian is supposed to end up with that code name. Meanwhile, the guide lists Cassian as 26 years old, and in the film, he talks about having been a rebel since he was 6 years old. So, Cassian was definitely an active rebel during Star Wars Rebels elsewhere in the galaxy.

What we don’t know for sure is whether that means Cassian will make an appearance on the show, or when, only that it’s totally possible. It would be pretty amazing to see more of pre-Jyn Erso Cassian in action, I’ve gotta say. And if they got Diego Luna to voice him? EEEK!

Star Wars: Rogue One Originally Had Bigger Plans for Saw Gerrera

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Via Gamespot.com:

“We originally thought we were going to develop Saw into something much larger, but we couldn’t accommodate it.”

Not only did Star Wars: Rogue One originally have a wildly different ending, but the filmmakers have now revealed they had bigger plans for one of the Rebel characters. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy told Empire (via Collider) that the original plan was for Forest Whitaker’s character, Saw Gerrera, to have a “much larger” presence in the sci-fi spinoff.

“To be honest, we originally thought we were going to develop Saw into something much larger, but we couldn’t accommodate it. So he is not in the movie as much as we would like to have him in the movie, which creates the opportunity to explore his character even further in our future development.”

Whitaker himself is also quoted in the Empire story. He said, “I’m curious about what else they’re about to do. Because they seem to really like the character, which is great!”

Kennedy’s “future development” line could be a reference to Gerrera’s ongoing store in the animated series Star Wars Rebels. Collider surmises that it might be possible for him to show up in future anthology movies, though this is not confirmed.

Rogue One arrived in theaters on December 16 and was the No. 1 movie worldwide. It has to date made more than $500 million around the globe.

“Enormously Different” Versions of ‘Rogue One’ Were Shot

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Via Collider.com:
Before Rogue One was in theaters, Disney held a huge press junket for the film in San Francisco. Unlike Star Wars: The Force Awakens, where we interviewed the cast without seeing anything but the trailers, Disney showed us almost thirty minutes of the film at Skywalker Ranch so reporters could learn more about the story and new characters since Rogue One takes place before the events of Star Wars: A New Hope. Like I said on Twitter and during a Facebook Live chat, the footage was fantastic and left all of us wanting more.

What I loved about the footage and film is that even though Rogue One takes place before the events of Episode IV, it feels completely unique and original. It looks and feels like a war movie that happens to take place in the Star Wars universe. In the footage, we saw plenty of scenes showing how the Empire is trying to take control of the universe and the brutality that happens when you try and resist. Part of the reason it feels like a war movie is because that’s what director Gareth Edwards set out to make. As you can see him explain in this interview, he shot Rogue One like a documentary embedded in a war zone. And after seeing the footage, I can say he succeeded.

During my print interview with Ben Mendelsohn he talked about how he landed the role, if the story changed compared to what he was told going in, how they would shoot different versions of the same scene to give Gareth Edwards choices in the editing room, what it’s been like working for Steven Spielberg on Ready Player One, Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour, and a lot more.

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