Five years after his debut, British director Gareth Edwards recently spoke about the maneuvers he had to go through to create Rogue One: A Star War Story. When he met with Lucasfilm’s Kiri Hart about his work on the Star Wars movie in 2016, he was working on Godzilla (2014). Edwards was finishing up the Warner Bros movie, and Rogue one I was in Disney, which is a ten minute walk away. For fear of jeopardizing the possibility of directing a sequel to Godzilla if the first one went well, Edwards kept their date silent.
While Gareth Edwards was interested in the Lucasfilm project, he was also initially hesitant about the secret project of Star wars.
“I was really torn,” Edwards said of their first meeting. “I wrote to Kiri [Hart] saying, ‘I think this would be an amazing idea for a Star Wars movie, but are you really going to do this? Or is it like spaghetti on the wall? ‘ And she said, ‘No, no, no. This is what we want to do, potentially the next thing. ‘
He also confessed that he thought he was just one of many directors meeting with Lucasfilm and that he wouldn’t make the cut, but the studio specifically wanted him. As revealed to CBR.com
“So I thought they were talking to maybe 20 filmmakers and I’m one of them, so I probably won’t even make the cut,” the filmmaker continued. I went to a few more meetings, met with Kathy [Kennedy, presidenta de Lucasfilm] and everything was going very well. And then in a moment, I thought, I’m going to ask the question just for my own peace. I said, “How many filmmakers and directors are you talking about this with?” And they said, ‘Oh, none.’ I was thinking, ‘Oh God, are you crazy?’ [Risas] And then, for whatever reason, I have to.
Edwards ended up involved in Roge One and of course did not direct the sequel to Godzilla. Not only that, but directing a Star Wars movie is a dream come true for Gareth Edwards. The franchise is one of the reasons Gareth Edwards got involved in film in the first place. “It’s not the kind of thing that should happen to you in your career, like even the best version of where your career could go”he told StarWars.com. “I feel very lucky and consider it a very sacred territory.” Something that we can attest to at cinemascomics.com, in 2009 we were able to speak with the director and he confessed to us being a fan of the classic trilogy.
The director still doesn’t think the fans will like him
However, the director has also revealed that despite apparent approval from fans, he does not believe the compliments he receives on the Star Wars movie. Gareth Edwards notes that he often thinks that those who praise him for the movie are doing it to be nice. He’s just thankful that the public doesn’t hate him. That was his greatest fear in doing Rogue one, which would somehow ruin people’s childhoods by reinventing stories that moviegoers imagined as something else.
And that could have been the case, considering the end result of the movie. If Shakespeare were alive today, he would consider Rogue one a tragedy. With virtually all of its heroes dying, under the direction of Gareth Edwards, the film is the darkest in the franchise. However, the film was a critically acclaimed success and a fan favorite in the modern Star Wars era.
«I think it makes it more mythical »Gareth Edwards said of reactions to his Star Wars movie. “Things are most valuable when they only exist for a brief moment and are not something you can always return to. I feel like the fact that they did it all, those characters got together and then can’t get back together, really, in the same way, it probably helped the movie in some way. “
Star Wars fans have criticized the way the franchise has been run since Disney bought Lucasfilm, but Rogue one It seemed to mediate any tension between the fans and the movies, thanks to Gareth Edwards. Rogue one was overshadowed by the success of The awakening of the force, released the year before, however, continued to be one of the fan-favorite movies. While the solo project was never intended to be further explored, a new Disney + series will tell the story of Cassian Andor (Diego Luna).
The next Star Wars to come will be the spin off of The mandalorian, with the series The Boba Fett Book next Wednesday, December 29. Do you want to see it?