An article from The Hollywood Reporter now suggests that Tony Gilroy, a screenwriter hired for uncredited rewrites to Rogue One: a Star Wars Story, is now guiding the film through post-production.
Reports of Gilroy’s involvement with Rogue One first appeared earlier this summer, when the production scheduled five weeks of reshoots. That news ignited a firestorm of rumors and unfounded concerns about Rogue One, the first new Star Wars spinoff. We’ve known since then that Gilroy, a screenwriter of the first four Bourne films, offered some guidance on the story’s emotional beats and action sequences. Director Gareth Edwards told Entertainment Weekly that the reshoots were mostly for pickup shots — just little enhancements to moments that are already in the film.
But now THR says that “several insiders” have corroborated reports about Gilroy’s involvement in the editing room, where he’s supposedly taking the lead. Disney hasn’t removed Gareth Edwards from the film. Instead, sources indicate that he and Gilroy are collaborating. That makes a lot of sense — Gilroy lent some assistance to Edwards when he was making Godzilla. Gilroy also helped producer Frank Marshall finish The Bourne Identity after a notoriously troubled production.
But none of the goings-on with Tony Gilroy and Rogue One give reason to worry. Pickup shoots and reshoots are a normal part of the filmmaking process. They make for great online gossip, but don’t serve as a reliable indicator of a film’s quality. No movie’s production is smooth, especially one that costs hundreds of millions of dollars. Uncredited rewrites (even during or after principal photography) are very, very common. No matter what “drama” unfolds behind the scenes, we’ll never know the whole truth. Disney is famously tight-lipped about the making of their films, and Rogue One is no exception. The recent “sizzle reel” Disney gave us at Star Wars Celebration Europe makes Rogue One look better than ever.