Skip to main content

Star Wars Anthology: Rogue One has added Forest Whitaker to its cast

forest whitaker star wars rogue one
Image used with permission by copyright holder
The confirmed cast of Star Wars Anthology: Rogue One already had one Oscar nominee in Felicity Jones, and now the project has gone a step farther and added a bona fide Oscar-winner in Forest Whitaker.

The actor, who won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the 2006 film The Last King of Scotland, will play an unspecified role in the Star Wars spinoff project, according to Variety. The film will reportedly follow a group of rebel fighters who conspire to steal the plans for the Galactic Empire’s super-weapon, The Death Star, in order to give the Rebel Alliance a chance to destroy it. The film will be set between the events of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope and lead into the events of the latter film.

Whitaker joins a cast that already includes aforementioned Oscar nominee Jones (The Theory of Everything), Riz Ahmed (Nightcrawler), Diego Luna (Milk), Sam Claflin (Snow White and the Huntsman), and Ben Mendelsohn (The Dark Knight Rises). Jones is expected to play the primary protagonist in the film, which is being described as a gritty, wartime heist movie set in the Star Wars universe.

Star Wars Anthology: Rogue One will be directed by Monsters and Godzilla filmmaker Gareth Edwards from a script co-written by veteran Star Wars visual-effects supervisor John Knoll, The Golden Compass and About a Boy screenwriter Chris Weitz, and The Book of Eli screenwriter Gary Whitta. Oscar-winning composer Alexandre Desplat (The Grand Budapest Hotel, The King’s Speech) will provide the score for the film.

The film will be the first of several spinoff movies set in the Star Wars universe, and is currently the only one with a confirmed title and general plot details. The second spinoff movie is rumored to focus on bounty hunter Boba Fett, but that has yet to be officially confirmed (or denied) by Disney.

Star Wars Anthology: Rogue One is currently scheduled to hit theaters December 16, 2016.

[Image courtesy of cinemafestival/Shutterstock]

Editors' Recommendations

Rick Marshall
A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…
Andor has a chance to make Star Wars feel fresh one more time
Diego Luna walks through a scrapyard of ships in a scene from Andor.

After the long road starting from the lead character's inception in 2016's Rogue One: A Star Wars Story to the series' announcement in 2018, Andor has finally premiered on Disney+ with the potential to be the most ambitious show on the streamer since The Mandalorian. The three-episode premiere made a solid first impression, showcasing exciting new elements to see front and center in a Star Wars production.

It's grounded, grittier, and setting the stage for tantalizing character drama and political intrigue across its cast of characters. At the same time, it's still early days for this 12-episode season (and 24-episode series overall), and Lucasfilm has been falling back into the trap of timeline overfamiliarity. The budding age of the Rebellion on its face is far from original for a franchise with such boundless possibilities, but Andor's moving pieces could make this era worthwhile -- at least one more time.
The post-Revenge of the Sith, pre-A New Hope dilemma

Read more
Andor review: Rogue One prequel is slow-burn Star Wars
Diego Luna walks through a scrapyard of ships in a scene from Andor.

Gareth Edwards' Rogue One: A Star Wars Story isn't the most controversial Star Wars movie ever made, but it still inspires plenty of passionate debate among fans about the place it holds in the beloved sci-fi saga. A gritty, standalone war story set in the period just before the events of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, 2016's Rogue One was always a risky bet, but it was one that paid off as it became the third highest-grossing film in the entire franchise.

Now, the studio is doubling down on that bet with Andor, a prequel-of-a-prequel that explores the formative years of Diego Luna's rebel spy Cassian Andor from Rogue One. And much like the film that inspired it, Andor delivers a very different -- but welcome -- Star Wars story with its simmering tale of espionage set in the early days of a galactic rebellion.

Read more
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was a big success, but is it a good movie?
Rogue One Oscar Effects

Rogue One, about a band of fledgling Rebels who attempt to steal the Death Star plans, holds the distinction of achieving something no Star Wars film had since A New Hope: it became a surprise hit. Well, OK, not exactly. As only the second Star Wars feature film to hit theaters since 2005, everybody knew it would make money no matter what. But there were lots of questions and some pessimistic predictions. Given the troubled production that required Disney to bring in Tony Gilroy and his team to do more than the usual amount of eleventh-hour tinkering and reshoots, as well as the fact that the movie featured mostly new characters, Disney was likely not banking on A Force Awakens nostalgia-drenched success.

But Rogue One became an enormous hit despite the stumbling blocks. It's still in 15th place on the all-time domestic box office list, though its international haul was less than desirable by industry standards, especially given the diverse cast of international actors representing a variety of marketplaces, er, I mean countries. And the reviews were decent, though critics seemed more relieved and surprised that it wasn't terrible given all the prerelease turmoil. There was still plenty of grumbling among reviewers, with The New York Times complaining that the movie sported a "surprisingly hackish script."

Read more