Fans may still be basking in the glow of last night's Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer, but movement on the next film, Gareth Edwards' spinoff Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, has long since started. In the beginning screenwriter Gary Whitta, who had previously written After Earth (and got ripped for it) was attached but he dropped out after a few months and was replaced by Chris Weitz. But he wasn't the only one to take a pass at the screenplay as Latino Review reports Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects, Mission: Impossible-Rogue Nation) spent a couple of weeks on it.
According to the report, McQuarrie jumped into the process at some point to do some script polishes, but it's unclear when exactly he got involved. Given the film has been in production since late summer he probably didn't make any significant changes, or at least let's hope he didn't because that could be a sign things aren't running too smoothly. The film stars Felicity Jones, Riz Ahmed, Ben Mendelsohn, Diego Luna, Forest Whitaker, Alan Tudyk, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen, and Jiang Wen, and follows a group of rebels tasked with stealing the Empire's Death Star plans.
McQuarrie is arguably a better writer than a director, and has screenplays are usually gritty with rough 'n tumble characters, which sounds perfect for the kind of tone they're going for on 'Rogue One'.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story opens December 16th 2016.
