Ralph won’t be the only McQuarrie associated with Star Wars. While Lucasfilm continues the trek to get the Gareth Edwards-helmed Rogue One: A Star Wars Story to the big screen later this year, a report has surfaced confirming that Christopher McQuarrie (no relation to award-winning illustrator) the unofficial Hollywood script doctor, has come aboard to “save” the project.
“Save” is a direct quote from a source to Birth. Movies. Death. According to the site, McQuarrie has been quietly brought in to fix the script for Rogue One, a heist film about a group of rebels working to steal plans for the Death Star. Gary Whitta was originally on script duties, but he soon departed the standalone film and moved on to Starlight, adapted from Mark Millar’s comic. Chris Weitz then came on, later remarking how “there’s a very strong structure from Gary’s work and that’s a huge advantage to me.”
However, Birth. Movies. Death. further states that the script still wasn’t in the right place after these change of hands. McQuarrie, will likely remain out of the film’s credits even though he’s said to be tightening up the story. This news comes a few months after Latino Review’s report from last October which claimed McQuarrie’s involvement extended over the course of two weeks.
In addition to recently writing and directing Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation with major success, McQuarrie also had a hand in Doug Liman’s summer blockbuster hit Edge of Tomorrow and he’s moving on to helm M:I 6. This Rogue One business wouldn’t be the first time he had to rework a script, either, as he previously helped save the tumultuous World War Z.
Rogue One stars Felicity Jones, Mads Mikkelsen, Ben Mendelsohn, Alan Tudyk, Donnie Yen, Forest Whitaker, Diego Luna, Riz Ahmed, and Jiang Wen. We’ll know if McQuarrie’s efforts paid off when Rogue One hits theaters on December 16th.
