Star Wars The Force Awakens is still this year’s most anticipated movie, and after Jurassic World’s worldwide success, it’ll be interesting to see how the new episode fares at the box offices. Although everyone is waiting for December for episode VII, Disney is already making sure that the follow-ups, especially the spinoff movies, won’t suffer any disadvantages in terms of cast/production.
The very first spinoff, titled Rogue One, is coming out next year, and is directed by Godzilla and Monsters director, Gareth Edwards. The Film is already in development, and will star Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything), Riz Ahmed (Nightcrawler), Diego Luna (Elysium) and Ben Mendelsohn (Exodus).
Now, these actors and actresses may be joined by Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker, who has been approached by the studio for an unknown role in Rogue One.
Mr. Whitaker’s current schedule is quite busy with a couple of ongoing movie projects, so it remains to be seen whether he accepts the role, and if he does, how much screen time he’ll get. Since he would be able to join the shooting only at the end of production, chances are slim for Mr. Whitaker to have a major role in the movie, but his name would look great on the posters, that would be able to lure some casual moviegoers to the theatres.
Star Wars: Rogue One will tell the story how the Rebellion captured the plans of the Death Star that was later used to exploit the space station’s weaknesses, and finally destroy it.
The second spinoff, which will focus on the legendary bounty hunter, Boba Fett, and will be released in the winter of 2018, is getting some help from the studio as well, after the original director, Josh Trank, suddenly left the production before it could really begin. High-profile directors, such as Joss Whedon (Avengers, Buffy), Matthew Vaughn (Kingsman, Kick-Ass) or Jon Favreau (Ironman I-II) have already been mentioned as possible successors for Mr.
Trank, but now Michelle Maclaren has moved up on that list.
So far Ms. Maclaren has only directed episodes for TV shows like Better Call Saul, Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead or Breaking Bad. Although officially Disney hasn’t started negotiating with actors, nor producers/directors for the second spinoff movie, Ms. Maclaren would be a much cheaper option than the aforementioned high-profile directors. Looking at her TV-show resume, however, she did an excellent job with the TV-shows that she’s worked on.
