Tony Gilroy talks about Rogue One

Solo: A Star Wars Story is set to be released on May 25th and is the second standalone Star Wars film to go through production problems. Ron Howard took over the project in June after the original directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were fired. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story had similar issues, bringing in Oscar-nominated filmmaker Tony Gilroy to work alongside director Gareth Edwards, overseeing the extensive reshoots the took place and the post-production process.



In a recent interview on The Moment with Brian Koppelman podcast (via THR), Gilroy opened up about working on the film, and his involvement in fixing the “mess” that Lucasfilm had ended up in. He said that:



"It was just a mess and fear that they gotten themselves in. I’ve never been interested in Star Wars ever, so I have no reverence for it whatsoever. I was unafraid of that. And they were in such a swamp – they were just in terrible, terrible trouble, that all you could do was improve their position.”



"If you look at Rogue, all the difficulty with Rogue, all the confusion of it, and all the smart people and all the mess, and in the end when you get in there, it’s actually very, very simple to solve. Because you sort of go, this is a movie where, ‘Folks, just look. Everyone is going to die.’ So it’s a movie about sacrifice.”



Gilroy wouldn't address the rumors that he was actually a ghost director on the film, stating that:



“I came in after the director’s cut. I have a screenplay credit in the arbitration that was easily won.”



He also said that he has no plans on directing his own Star Wars film, saying:



“No, I don’t like it. It doesn’t appeal to me. I don’t think Rogue is a Star Wars movie in a lot of ways. It’s a Battle of Britain film.”



Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was directed by Gareth Edwards (Monsters) and stars Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything), Diego Luna (Milk), Ben Mendelsohn (The Dark Knight Rises), Donnie Yen (Ip Man), Jiang Wen (Let the Bullets Fly), Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland), Alan Tudyk (Con Man), Riz Ahmed (Nightcrawler), Genevieve O’Reilly (Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith), Jimmy Smits (Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones), James Earl Jones (Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope), Valene Kane (The Fall), Alistair Petrie (The Night Manager), Warwick Davis (Star Wars: Episode IV – Return of the Jedi), Ian McElhinney (Game of Thrones) and Jonathan Aris (Sherlock).



"From Lucasfilm comes the first of the Star Wars standalone films, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, an all-new epic adventure. In a time of conflict, a group of unlikely heroes band together on a mission to steal the plans to the Death Star, the Empire’s ultimate weapon of destruction. This key event in the Star Wars timeline brings together ordinary people who choose to do extraordinary things, and in doing so, become part of something greater than themselves."

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