Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’s Riz Ahmed debunks prequel movie rumors. Ahmed is currently garnering major awards buzz for his performance in Sound of Metal and may be in line for his first Oscar nomination, but many fans still know him primarily for playing former imperial pilot Bodhi Rook in the Star Wars standalone film.
Of course like most of the major characters in Rogue One, Ahmed’s Bodhi Rook died during the film’s action-packed finale, eliminating the possibility of the character returning for any Star Wars movies or TV shows set after that film’s events. But prequels are one way of getting around that whole being dead thing and indeed another Rogue One character, Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor, is set to be featured in his own Disney+ series arriving in 2022. As for an actual Rogue One prequel film, there have been rumors for awhile that this could happen, though nothing firm has ever been announced.
Unfortunately for Rogue One fans hoping for a full-on follow-up movie set before the explosive events that claimed the lives of most of the film’s characters, it seems there isn’t anything like that actually in the works. Speaking to THR, Ahmed pretty decisively shot down the notion that a Rogue One prequel is being pursued, saying of such a project “I just haven't heard of that, to be honest.”
There are of course plenty of Star Wars properties currently in the works beyond the Cassian Andor series previously mentioned. Disney+ is leading the way with multiple series on the horizon, including Obi-Wan Kenobi starring Ewan McGregor, the Boba Fett show The Book of Boba Fett, a show centered on Mandalorian character Ahsoka Tano and the animated show The Bad Batch. For the big screen, Disney is again headed back into Star Wars history for Rogue Squadron, to be directed by Wonder Woman helmer Patty Jenkins. Of course it’s important to remember that Disney is in the habit of announcing lots of projects that end up never making it to screens.
Given that already full slate of Star Wars projects, it’s perhaps no surprise that a direct Rogue One prequel film is not currently in development. Though the original movie was a big hit with over $1 billion grossed worldwide, its place in overall Star Wars lore is not particularly prominent, given that it was itself already a prequel dealing with events that were only passingly referenced in the original movies.
It’s anyway hard to guess what a Rogue One prequel film would even look like. Pulling together multiple characters would be a stretch given that most of them never met before Rogue One itself. A standalone show centered on an individual character like Andor does make more sense, which opens up the possibility of Ahmed’s character Bodhi Rook one day getting a similar treatment. It all depends on how far Disney really wants to go in pulling characters from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story who they feel have the potential to carry their own series.
Source: THR
