Star Wars Rogue One Reshoots Ordered, Studio "Unhappy" With First Cut - Report

Anticipation is high for the next Star Wars movie, the standalone film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which hits cinemas in December. The first trailer was released in April, but now it has been reported that the film might be in trouble and the studio is demanding reshoots.

According to Page Six, executives at Disney are unhappy with the first cut that director Gareth Edwards has delivered. The site's sources said: "The execs at Disney are not happy with the movie, and Rogue One will have to go back into four weeks of expensive reshoots in July. Disney won't take a back seat, and is demanding changes, as the movie isn't testing well."

Reshoots on big budget films are not uncommon, and Page Six quoted a source at Disney who defended this decision. "The filmmaking team and the studio always anticipated additional shooting and second unit work to make the film the absolute best it can be, and the actors were aware there would be additional shooting," the source said. "Coming off The Force Awakens, there's an incredibly high bar for this movie and we have a responsibility to the franchise and to the fans to deliver the best possible movie we can."

Neither Disney or Edwards' representatives have commented officially on the story.

This isn't the first time that rumours have circulated about potential problems with Rogue One. In January it was reported that Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation writer/director Christopher McQuarrie had been hired by Disney to rewrite the script, and that he had "saved" the movie. McQuarrie has a reputation as one of the most in-demand script doctors in Hollywood, and his work on World War Z helped turned a troubled, overbudget movie into a hit.

A number of people involved with the production of Rogue One have spoken about the different approach that Edwards was bringing to the film. When the cast and crew were first announced last year, Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy described how the film "goes into new territory, exploring the galactic struggle from a ground-war perspective."

Last month, star Riz Ahmed told Movieweb: "What Gareth is bringing to Rogue One is [an] incredible, organic, loose, kind of a raw feeling. He speaks about it in terms of a war movie. And he compares it to other war movies. We're doing something a little different to the other films. And hopefully people are ready for that."

Rogue One is set before the original Star Wars, and focuses upon a group of mercenaries who are hired to capture the plans to the Death Star. The cast also includes Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, Forest Whitaker, and Mads Mikkelsen. It hits cinemas on December 16, 2016.