Tony Gilroy on a ‘Rogue One’ Director’s Cut: ‘Oh My God. No’

When Rogue One: A Star Wars Story arrived in theaters in late 2016, it looked quite different from the film that had been promised by its trailers. In fact, here at ScreenCrush I posted an article called “18 Moments From the Rogue One Trailers That Aren’t Actually in the Movie” detailing all of the stuff that had been cut from the film in editing. One or two beats or shots in a trailer not being in the final movie aren’t out of the ordinary. But 18? That’s unheard of.

The changes were the result of extensive reshoots and post-production work done on Rogue One. Supposedly more than a month was spent shooting additional footage for the Star Wars prequel, much of it overseen by the film’s co-writer, Tony Gilroy. The exact specifics of who did what has never been entirely clear — Gareth Edwards was the film’s original and credited director — but Gilroy clearly did a lot of work on the final released cut. He then went on to create the Rogue One prequel series Andor.

All the changes to Rogue One have made Star Wars fans intensely curious about what the movie was supposed to look like originally — and whether there is a chance we might eventually see an alternate cut of the film that includes more of that vision. Is there a director’s cut or extended cut out there waiting to be released?

According to Gilroy, the answer to that question is a definitive no. (Like literally his quote was “Oh my God. No.”)

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Gilroy told The Hollywood Reporter….

I’m not going to go into any more detail. But the more authority that you hear people talk about online about what happened on that movie, the less they know. That’s all that needs to be said. Maybe someday … but no. That’s the absolute best version of that movie that you could possibly imagine in the time that was given.

Okay, forget a Rogue One director’s cut. Someone write a book about what really went down behind the scenes of that movie. It sounds like that would be a hell of a read. Gilroy’s Andor will return soon for a second and final season on Disney+.

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