Rogue One Director Reveals How He Edged Away From Godzilla to Meet Lucasfilm

We all remember Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, due to which the Star Wars franchise got the disaster treatment in 2016. The movie breaks away from the story of the Jedi and Sith for the very first time and told a story about a group of people who have nothing to lose, facing death in the entire movie. Director Gareth Edwards had given a similar movie just before Rogue One, taking over the Godzilla franchise for Warner Bros., focusing more on the terrified people than the kaiju himself.

How Star Wars: Rogue One Director Snuck Away From Godzilla to Meet Lucasfilm

It is pretty easy to see how one movie led to another for director Edwards, but he was actually working on Godzilla when he was asked to meet with Lucasfilm about Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. While appearing in an interview with StarWars.com, Edwards revealed the story of sneaking from one studio to the other.

Here’s what the director revealed:

“I remember when I first met with [Lucasfilm’s] Kiri Hart at the very beginning of it all, just snuck in for a very secretive meeting,” Edwards explained. “I think they were meeting with loads and loads of filmmakers, like it was [when] The Force Awakens was beginning. I don’t think anyone had announced the title or anything. We knew there was a Star Wars film happening and probably more to come. At the time I was finishing Godzilla, and they were at Disney, and you can walk from Warner Bros. to Disney in about 10 minutes. I was nervous about telling anyone that I was going for a meeting at Lucasfilm, because if things went well I’d be doing the Godzilla sequel, and so I pretended I had to get some food or something. I just went down and met with Kiri Hart down the road.”

We all know that Edwards didn’t direct a second Godzilla movie, but he went on to take the secretive Star Wars project that later became Rogue One. In the beginning, Edwards was quite hesitant about the opportunity, as he thought he’d be one of the directors meeting with Lucasfilm. However, as it turned out, the studio had its eye on him.

Edwards Was “Torn” After The First Meeting

“I was really torn,” Edwards said of that first meeting. “I wrote back to Kiri [Hart] saying, ‘I think this would be an amazing idea for a Star Wars film, but are you seriously going to do this? Or is it just like, spaghetti at the wall kind of stuff?’ And she was like, ‘No, no, no. This is what we want to do, potentially next.'”

“Then I figured, they’re 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 in for a few more meetings, met with Kathy [Kennedy, Lucasfilm president], and it was all going very well. And then at one point I thought, I’m just going to ask the question just for my own peace of mind. I said, ‘How many other filmmakers and directors are you talking to about this?’ And they were like, ‘Oh, none.’ I was thinking, ‘Oh, God, are you crazy?’ [Laughs] And then for whatever reason, I got to do it.”