Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

"Real...This is a real place that we're really in...The thing that interests me about it, is Star Wars was basically very black and white. Our movie is gray."

- Gareth Edwards on Rogue One

Rogue One is an upcoming live-action Star Wars stand-alone film, the first in a proposed series of Star Wars Anthology titles. The film, set for release on December 16, 2016, will be directed by Gareth Edwards. A first draft was written by Gary Whitta, and Chris Weitz took over scripting duties in 2015. Academy Award-nominated actress Felicity Jones will be one of the stars of the film, which is scheduled to begin filming in the summer of 2015. Rogue One will take place between Star Wars Rebels and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope.

Development
The film was first announced on May 22, 2014, with Gareth Edwards attached as director and Gary Whitta as writer. By January 9, 2015, Whitta had left the project after completing a first draft of the screenplay. On January 26, 2015, it was announced that Oscar-nominated writer Chris Weitz had been hired to replace Whitta. On March 12, 2015, Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed the name of the film to be Rogue One &mdash; which was a title coined by Whitta.

Plot
A band of resistance fighters unite for a daring mission to steal the Death Star plans.

Release
Due to a perceived title similarity between the July 2015 film Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (the name of which was registered before that of Rogue One) and Rogue One, Disney made a deal with that film's distributor in which Disney could not publically discuss Rogue One during the summer of 2015&mdash;with the exception of Celebration Anaheim.