Many creators who grew up with Star Wars, like Jon Favreau, consider working on Star Wars to be a lifelong dream. But when Rogue One became a hit, cowriter and ghost codirector Tony Gilroy wasn’t especially interested in doing more. In a report today from Variety, he recalls the conversation with Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy following the film’s success.
“I remember Kathy saying, ‘What can we do?’ And I said, ‘Well, what kind of stories do you want to do?’” Gilroy recalls. “And she goes, ‘We could do anything.’ So I said, ‘Could you do, like, “Inherit the Wind”?’”
That temporarily ended the conversation. The Disney+ show Andor won’t be a courtroom drama. But it will “depict, in almost Dickensian detail, the intertwining lives of everyday people as they orbit around the formation of the Rebel Alliance…rather than wayward Jedi or secret Skywalkers, Andor follows lowly factory workers and midlevel technocrats, seemingly unremarkable characters who’ve long hovered in the background but were never granted the spotlight until now.”
RELATED: Andor Creator Explains How the Series Builds Towards Rogue One
Gilroy looked at the original idea for a Rogue One prequel, which he describes as a “Butch and Sundance” style adventure for Cassian Andor and K-2SO. He responded with not just a critique, but a “crazy idea” of what he would do instead. And they went for it.
“You should be able to watch the show and not give a [expletive] about Star Wars ever, or seen any Star Wars,” Gilroy says. “This show should work on its own. The hope, the dream, is that the really hardcore Star Wars community will embrace the show in a new way — that they’ll be thrilled to have someone come in and completely uncynically get down molecularly in their world and treat it like a real thing.”
Do you want to see a ground-level Star Wars show about the ordinary people in the galaxy? Or would you have preferred “Butch and Sundance”? Let us know in comments!
Recommended Reading: The Art of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
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