The first teaser trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story teased a different sort of Star Wars movie, one that’s not afraid to dig deep into the greasy, muddy, perpetually soot-caked underbelly of the Star Wars universe. No cute robots, no princesses, and no snappy one-liners (okay, maybe a few snappy one liners). Just good old-fashioned ’70s-style grit.
Well, apparently all that grit is getting stuck between Disney executives’ teeth, because Page Six claims that the company’s top brass is not happy with the film in its current form, and has ordered four weeks of expensive reshoots this summer. (While Page Six is a gossip column, making anything is writes by definition hearsay, it also broke the news of Alden Ehrenreich’s casting as the young Han Solo. So clearly the studio connections are strong with this one.)
What, exactly, is giving the suits the vapors is not clear—Page Six simply says that “Disney won’t take a back seat, and is demanding changes, as the movie isn’t testing well”—but considering director Gareth Edwards reportedly wanted the movie to take a “darker turn,” we’re guessing it has something to do with Darth Vader committing genocide or Force choking a puppy or something like that. Then again, villains committing genocide is a pretty common occurrence in Star Wars, so it could also have something to do with a purported hero doing something uncharacteristically evil. Maybe Han Solo, blaster in hand, standing knee-deep in dead Bothans?
Anyway, reshoots or no reshoots Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is coming to a theater near you on December 16, because God damn it, Disney’s got toys to sell.