Star Wars Rogue One Cast, More Plot Details Revealed

Today at Disney's D23 event in California, the media giant announced more details about its upcoming standalone Star Wars movie, Rogue One, which is slated to hit theaters in December 2016.

Principal photography for the picture has begun, Disney said. As announced previously Godzilla and Monsters director Gareth Edwards is helming the project, which tells the story of "resistance fighters who have united to steal plans to the dreaded Death Star."

Disney also today announced the cast for Rogue One. Their roles were not immediately made clear, but Disney did say that Alan Tudyk will play a performance capture character in the film. Take a look at the actor lineup below the image.

Rogue One confirmed cast so far:

• Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything)
• Diego Luna (Milk)
• Ben Mendelsohn (Bloodline)
• Donnie Yen (Blade II)
• Jiang Wen (Let the Bullets Fly)
• Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland)
• Mads Mikkelsen (Casino Royale)
• Alan Tudyk (I, Robot)
• Riz Ahmed (Nightcrawler)

Rogue One is set before the events of A New Hope. Overall, it's described as a "departure" from the core, saga movies, but will still have "elements that are familiar to the Star Wars universe," producer Kathleen Kennedy said.

"It goes into new territory, exploring the galactic struggle from a ground-war perspective while maintaining that essential Star Wars feel that fans have come to know," she added. "Gareth is such an innovative director and I'm so excited to be working with him and the extraordinary ensemble cast he's selected for Rogue One."

Disney also announced today that Zero Dark Thirty's Greig Fraser will be the director of photography for Rogue One, while Black Hawk Down, Gladiator, and Saving Private Ryan veteran Neil Corbould will work on the film as its special effects supervisor. In addition, Disney revealed that Harry Potter costume designer Dave Crossman is working on Rogue One.