Despite Millions in Reshoots ‘Rogue One’ Was Still the Cheapest Disney ‘Star Wars’ Film
The Star Wars movies are some of the biggest and most popular movies in the world, and Disney stands to make a lot of money from the franchise. That’s why, like many movie studios, Disney often orders some reshoots for its biggest films to make sure that the movies are as good as they can be.
However, in the case of Rogue One, those reshoots ended up changing a lot about the movie. Unsurprisingly, reshoots of that scale also ended up costing Disney a lot of money. That said, compared to the other Disney era Star Wars films, Rogue One actually ended up being cheaper than the rest.
The troubled production of ‘Rogue One’
As Looper wrote, months before its release, Rogue One seemed to be in dire straits. The original cut of the movie, which was done by Gareth Edwards, just didn’t seem to hit the notes that Disney was hoping for. In a relatively unprecedented move, Disney hired a new director, Tony Gilroy, to not only reshoot parts of the movie but also rewrite a few scenes as well.
Gilroy is a critically acclaimed screenwriter, but he had only directed a handful of movies before he got this gig. Despite that, Looper said that Gilroy was paid $5 million to do these reshoots for Disney, so the total cost of the reshoots was much more than that. While it’s not clear how much money those reshoots ultimately cost Disney, the movie still ended up being the cheapest movie in the Disney era of Star Wars films.
How the budget of ‘Rogue One’ compares to its peers
Hollywood budgets are of course a fickle thing, as any article about “Hollywood accounting” would tell you. That said, there are publicly released budgets for the Star Wars movies, and Rogue One still takes the cake for being the cheapest Star Wars movie, despite the extensive reshoots and rewrites.
For example, the three movies in the sequel trilogy were all extremely expensive, according to Box Office Mojo. The Force Awakens had a $245 million budget, The Last Jedi had a $317 million budget, and The Rise of Skywalker had a $275 million budget. Solo: A Star Wars Story, also had a $275 million budget, and like Rogue One, it also needed extensive reshoots with a new director.
But, despite needing those reshoots, Box Office Mojo said that Rogue One ended up costing Disney about $200 million. But of course, since it’s Hollywood, these figures aren’t necessarily set in stone. Regardless, while other sources will give slightly different numbers, Rogue One remains the cheapest movie of them all.
How fans and critics reacted to ‘Rogue One’
According to Looper, Rogue One did really well with critics and audiences alike. The movie made a tad over $1 billion at the box office, and it got great reviews from most critics. It currently has a score of 84% on Rotten Tomatoes, which means that, of the over 400 critics who’ve reviewed the movie, 84% of them gave the movie a positive review.
One of the main reasons why Rogue One was so successful was because of the risks that the movie takes. Rogue One is a solo movie, and it, unlike other franchise films, has a definitive beginning and end. There’s no chance for a sequel to Rogue One since the movie ends at the beginning of A New Hope anyway.
That said, the movie does seem to have hit a chord with fans. That’s why Disney is developing a prequel series to Rogue One. It’ll feature the exploits of one of the main characters, Cassian Andor, and it’ll be a TV show for Disney+.
