rogue one: a star wars story

Many films that are destined for the big screen get re-shoots or planned production times after an initial cut of the film has been done where the crews can go back and shoot additional or replacement footage for certain scenes.  It’s a fairly common practice, although the re-shot and re-edited scenes are usually minimal in nature, comparative to the overall plot of the film.  Rumor has it, however, that the upcoming Star Wars spinoff, ‘Rogue One,’ has heavy reshoots planned by parent company Disney, who is unhappy with how the film has fared so far with test audiences.

There has only been one trailer released so far for the film, which was actually met with great enthusiasm from the fans.  However, a cool-looking trailer does not directly equate to a successful and well-received film — look no further than this very franchise’s ‘Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace’ for evidence of such.  According to anonymous sources speaking to news website Page Six:

“The execs at Disney are not happy with the movie, and ‘Rogue One’ will have to go back into four weeks of expensive reshoots in July.”

The vibe that most viewers got from the first trailer was that this film might have a slightly darker tone than the previous ‘Star Wars’ films, but “darker” hasn’t necessarily been playing well to general audiences as of late.  ‘Deadpool‘ was R-rated but with a heavily snarky comedic element to it that helped keep it’s action and violence feeling not-so-grim; on the flip side, ‘Batman V Superman‘ was so dark and moody (and bombed with audiences) that DC Films did reshoots and edits on the upcoming ‘Suicide Squad’ to give it a lighter overall vibe, including literally lightening and injecting color into its logo.

A source from Disney said that these re-shoots were planned from the get-go, however, and are nothing out of the ordinary:

“The filmmaking team and the studio always anticipated additional shooting and second unit work to make the film the absolute best it can be, and the actors were aware there would be additional shooting. Coming off ‘The Force Awakens,’ there’s an incredibly high bar for this movie and we have a responsibility to the franchise and to the fans to deliver the best possible movie we can.”

Ultimately, fans would do well to remember that Disney does have an incredibly successful history of producing movies that are very appealing to audiences, so hopefully this is just business as usual for the House of Mouse.

‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’ opens in US theaters on December 16, 2016.

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Tony Schaab yearns to see the deleted scene from the ‘Thundercats’ cartoon in which Snarf is forced to do his monthly cleaning of the giant litterbox behind the Cat’s Lair.  A lover of most things sci-fi and horror, Tony is an author by day and a DJ by night. Come hang out with Tony on Facebook and Twitter to hear him spew semi-funny nonsense and get your opportunity to finally put him in his place.