Having the full breadth of knowledge we now do, you could certainly make the case that the best Star Wars movie in the Disney era, the one that best married nostalgia and fan service while telling a new original story, was director Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Since that film’s release though in 2016, we haven’t seen anything new from the director. That’s about to change though because Rogue One’s Gareth Edwards has found his Star Wars follow-up.
Gareth Edwards has been developing several projects since Rogue One: A Star Wars story and he has now lined up a new directorial project at New Regency. According to Variety, Gareth Edwards will write and direct a new untitled science fiction film that will be financed and produced by New Regency with Rogue One co-producer Kiri Hart also serving as producer.
So after his stint in a galaxy far, far away, where will this new project take Gareth Edwards? That remains to be seen because the actual plot of Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One follow-up is a secret, locked up tighter than the Death Star plans, at least for now.
What is known though is that this untitled sci-fi film is an original idea from Gareth Edwards and that it’s said to be a near-future sci-fi story, so rather than ‘a long time ago…,’ it will be ‘a short time from now…’
It may have taken a while for Gareth Edwards to pick his next project after Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, but now that he’s settled on it things look to be moving quickly. Casting is apparently already underway and Gareth Edwards’ untitled science fiction movie is looking to go before cameras by this summer.
It’s hard to judge a project without knowing much about it, but this sounds like a pretty exciting development all around. Tony Gilroy may have taken over as director on Rogue One and handled the reshoots, but Gareth Edwards took it all in stride and his fingerprints are inevitably still on the first and the best Star Wars Story.
Original sci-fi is a precious thing and it’s exciting to hear that we are getting a new, original sci-fi movie from a director that has proven his chops in the genre. Gareth Edwards may be known as a director given his work on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and 2014’s Godzilla, but he is a writer as well.
Gareth Edwards’ feature debut was the critically acclaimed 2010 sci-fi thriller Monsters, which he wrote and directed as well as serving as his own cinematographer and production designer on. So Edwards is at home writing and directing in the science fiction genre and it will be interesting to see what he came up with that had New Regency jump at the chance to make it.
For science fiction fans, you don’t have to wait for Gareth Edwards’ next movie, there’s plenty of anticipated sci-fi arriving in 2020. Check out all the biggest movies coming this year in our 2020 Release Schedule.
