“They were so much in terrible, terrible trouble”: Andor Creator Revealed How He Saved Rogue One to Become One of the Best Star Wars Movies But Diego Luna Begs to Differ
George Lucas’ ever-expanding world of Star Wars would have run ashore for a moment with the movie Rogue One if Andor creator Tony Gilroy had not gotten into production at the right time. Gilroy earned millions from being at the right place at the right time saving the hard work of hundreds of people and the studio’s millions because they were not exactly happy with director Gareth Edwards’ cut of the movie.
The movie hit the silver screens in 2016, but the people involved in it did not candidly speak about how messy things had gotten until years later. Gilroy’s contributions to the movie could not have been ignored, but Diego Luna, who played Cassian Andor in the movie, seemed reluctant to admit it in an interview.
Andor Creator On How He Stopped Rogue One from Becoming the Black Sheep of the Star Wars Franchise
Tony Gilroy, the mastermind behind the Bourne trilogy, The Bourne Legacy, and now the Star Wars Disney+ show Andor had to take an emergency trip to the latter universe in 2016 to not only rewrite certain parts of the movie Rogue One but also conduct uncredited reshoots of some scenes including the ending one.
Gilroy came into the picture in June 2016 and by August 2016, he was a major contributor to the film’s postproduction process. However, he did not open up about what really went down until 2018 in a podcast episode of The Moment with Brian Koppelman. He told Koppelman:
They were in such a swamp…they were in so much terrible, terrible trouble that all you could do was improve their position.
Given his expertise in working on movies, it does not come as much of a surprise that he was able to work through the mess. However, some might find it surprising that he was not a fan of the franchise to begin with, which might have been helpful in some ways.
I’ve never been interested in ‘Star Wars,’ ever. So I had no reverence for it whatsoever. I was unafraid about that.
The movie grossed over $1 billion worldwide (via The Numbers), making it the second-highest-grossing film of the year and the 20th-highest-grossing film of all time. It is considered one of the best films in the franchise and even spawned the sequel Andor.
Diego Luna Was Initially Reluctant to Admit that Tony Gilroy Helped Save Rogue One
In an interview with The Guardian in September 2022, when the interviewer said that Gilroy had “saved” the movie, Diego Luna seemed to disagree as he said:
Well, uh, I would say that is not the right way to put it.
When he was made aware of Gilroy’s exact words regarding the matter, he agreed that the writer had made his character complex. As for his reluctance to admit that the movie’s initial shooting was not going too well.
It’s important to highlight that there is no single way to get to any destination. To me, Rogue One is a film that took so many risks.
The reason he seemed to be reluctant about admitting Gilroy’s contributions was because he thought that the interviewer was trying to disparage the movie. Once that confusion was cleared after the interviewer stated that it was one of the best movies, The Terminal actor had no trouble agreeing that Gilroy helped fix the mess. All that said, it was a joint effort that made the movie this successful.
Rogue One is available for streaming on Disney+.
