How Rian Johnson Supported Gareth Edwards in Creating Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Remember that Disney purchased Lucasfilm back in 2012, and immediately announced a grand plan for “Star Wars” that would flood the marketplace. Starting in 2015, there was to be a new “Star Wars” film every year. The odd-numbered years would feature a proper “Star Wars” “Episode” with a Roman numeral, and the even-numbered years would feature spin-off movies about ancillary characters or events from the “Star Wars” universe. This plan worked for five years before it was abandoned in 2019.

“Rogue One” was the first of the spin-off movies, taking place in between “Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith” and the original “Star Wars.” One can only imagine the bustle at Lucasfilm as multiple productions went underway at the same time. It’s likely Edwards and Johnson ran into each other in a hallway as they each prepared their respective movies. Edwards, a fan of Johnson’s, wanted to pitch his “Rogue One” idea to a peer. He recalls:

“Yeah, we were very lucky when we were developing the film. Rian Johnson was hanging around a lot working on his movie, and so I became very friendly with Rian. And he was actually the first person we ever told the story to. I remember … Gary [Whitta and I] got him to come down to our office and we pitched him the whole movie very early on. […] But his reaction encouraged us and he gave us some thoughts, [saying]’Okay, that didn’t come across.’ And that was really, really useful.”

Johnson had a cameo in “Rogue One” as a Death Star technician, and Edwards appeared in “The Last Jedi” as a Rebel fighter.