Toby Haynes will be directing the first three episodes of Disney+’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story prequel that will be centering on the character of Rebellion spy Cassian Andor.
Deadline is reporting that Haynes is sliding into the director’s chair to replace Tony Gilroy, who had to bow out due to Covid-19-related travel concerns.
Gilroy lives in New York and had to make a decision quickly on whether he would head over to the UK for the shoot; in the end, he thought it would be best that he stay in New York and have Haynes take over his directing duties.
Haynes already was high on the list of directors who would helm future episodes and since he also already was in the UK, all parties thought this would make the most sense.
Diego Luna will be returning to his role as the Rebel spy Cassian Andor, with Alan Tudyk set to reprise his Rogue One role of K-2SO, Andor’s droid sidekick.Cast members new to the Star Wars galaxy with this series include Adria Arjona, Denise Gough, Genevieve O’Reilly, Stellan Skarsgard and Kyle Soller .
Haynes is no stranger to science-fiction. He has previously directed the Black Mirror fan favorite episode ” U. S. S. Callister,” and the anticipated Amazon series Utopia which will premier this Friday.
Gilroy, of course, was already familiar with the Star Wars milieu, especially the character and story era that this still untitled series will be centered on, before signing on to oversee the series. He was the writer and director who oversaw the reshoots for the Rogue One film, which reportedly restructured much of the film’s third act.
Disney+ has had enormous success with its first Star Wars spinoff series, The Mandalorian, whose second season is set to roll out at the end of next month. In addition to this Rogue One prequel series, the streaming service also has a series centering on Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi in the works with Ewan McGregor set to reprise his role from the prequel films.
