Lucasfilm announced the full cast for Gareth Edwards’ standalone “Star Wars” movie, “Rogue One,” on Saturday.
Felicity Jones stars alongside Ben Mendelsohn, Forest Whitaker, Mads Mikkelsen, Alan Tudyk, Riz Ahmed, Diego Luna, Hong Kong action star Donnie Yen and award-winning filmmaker Jiang Wen.
Tudyk will play a performance-capture character in “Rogue One,” which has already started principal photography.
The film tells the story of resistance fighters who have united to steal plans to the dreaded Death Star. The film is produced by Kathleen Kennedy and slated for a December 16, 2016 release.
“‘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,” 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. 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.
Allison Shearmur (“The Hunger Games: Catching Fire”), John Knoll, Simon Emanuel (“The Dark Knight Rises”) and Jason McGatlin (“War of the Worlds”) are executive producers. Kiri Hart and John Swartz (“Star Wars: The Force Awakens”) are co-producers.
To create the lived-in, realistic feel of “Rogue One,” Edwards chose Greig Fraser (“Zero Dark Thirty”) to be his director of photography and Neil Corbould (“Saving Private Ryan”) to be his special effects supervisor. Star Wars and Lucasfilm veteran Doug Chiang (“Star Wars: Episodes I-II”) and Neil Lamont (supervising art director for the “Harry Potter” series) will be the production designers.
Additional crew members will include stunt coordinator Rob Inch (Marvel’s “Captain America: The First Avenger”), creature effects supervisor Neal Scanlan (“Prometheus”) and co-costume designers Dave Crossman (costume supervisor for the “Harry Potter” series) and Glyn Dillon (costume concept artist for “Kingsman: The Secret Service”).