Here’s your first image of the cast from Gareth Edward’s Star Wars film, Rogue One. And it turns out that Firefly’s Alan Tudyk is playing a “performance capture” character in the film. Time to start speculating: Is he an alien, or a droid? Or something else?
With the above picture, Lucasfilm has confirmed the cast of the film, which includes Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, Jiang Wen, Forest Whitaker, Mads Mikkelsen, Alan Tudyk and Riz Ahmed.
Principal photography has begun on the movie, which is set to be released on December 16, 2016. The prequel to the original Star Wars will feature some elements that we’re already familiar with but also go into some new territory, according to Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy:
Rogue One takes place before the events of Star Wars: A New Hope and will be a departure from the saga films but have elements that are familiar to the Star Wars universe,” says Kathleen Kennedy. “It goes into new territory, exploring the galactic struggle from a ground-war perspective while maintaining that essentialStar Wars feel that fans have come to know. 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.’”
Veteran ILM visual effects supervisor John Knoll, who shares a long history with the Star Wars movies, dating back to the mid-1990s, originated the idea for the movie.
One interesting point out of Lucasfilm’s announcement is a new name change for the standalone films, which will be referred to as the Star Wars Stories Series, rather than the Anthology films.
Photo Credit: Jonathan Olley / Lucasfilm