Disney and Lucasfilm have announced the cast of Gareth Edwards’s stand-alone Star Wars film, which is officially called Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. They also released a cast photo from the set, which you can see below.
The film’s cast includes Felicity Jones, Riz Ahmed (Jake Gyllenhaal’s subordinate in Nightcrawler), Diego Luna, Jiang Wen, Donnie Yen, the always-great Ben Mendelsohn, Forest Whitaker, Firefly alum Alan Tudyk, and Mads Mikkelsen. (If we can’t get a fourth season of Hannibal, having Mikkelsen in a Star Wars movie isn’t such a bad consolation prize.) The film is slated for a December 16, 2016, release.
From the official Star Wars site, here’s a brief synopsis:
“Rogue One takes place before the events of Star Wars: A New Hope and will be a departure from the saga films but have elements that are familiar to the Star Wars universe,†says Kathleen Kennedy. “It goes into new territory, exploring the galactic struggle from a ground-war perspective while maintaining that essential Star Wars feel that fans have come to know. Gareth is such an innovative director and I’m so excited to be working with him and the extraordinary ensemble cast he’s selected for ‘Rogue One.’â€
