Star Wars' Rogue One TV show spinoff casts Stellan Skarsgård and Kyle Soller. Released in 2016, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story represented the first attempt by Disney to make a feature film expanding the Star Wars universe beyond the main storyline (which Disney of course also re-ignited with 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens).
At least at the box office, Rogue One proved to be a great gamble for Disney as it went on to gross $1.056 billion worldwide. Unfortunately, the follow-up Star Wars standalone film Solo: A Star Wars Story didn’t do quite so well, coming in with only $393 billion worldwide. The failure of Solo understandably brought an end – at least for the time-being – to further attempts at Star Wars standalone movies. But expansion of the universe continues on Disney’s streaming service Disney+, with a Rogue One series headlined by Cassian Andor actor Diego Luna coming on the heels of the wild success of last year’s The Mandalorian.
Rogue One the streaming series may not have its own Baby Yoda to help bolster its popularity like The Mandalorian does (that anyone knows of, at least) but it does have an ever-more-impressive cast that just added Skarsgård and Soller (via Variety). Details have not been revealed about the actors’ roles. It’s believed the series is a prequel exploring the origins of Luna’s Andor, the pilot and rebel spy introduced in the 2016 film.
Skarsgård of course has already made his mark in the world of huge Disney franchise movies, having played scientist Erik Selvig in the first Thor and the first Avengers. The actor got his start in his native Sweden before making the leap to Hollywood in the late ‘90s in movies like Good Will Hunting, Amistad and Ronin. A brave soul, Skarsgård has also starred several times for noted Danish wild man director Lars Von Trier. More recently, Skarsgård scored a Golden Globe for his performance in the acclaimed HBO miniseries Chernobyl. He’s also set to star as main villain Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in Denis Villeneuve’s already-controversial adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune.
Skarsgård’s soon-to-be-costar Soller doesn’t have nearly as much experience as that, but he has nonetheless made his mark largely on the small screen. Soller’s notable TV appearances came in the series Poldark, 101 Dalmatian Street and Counterfeit Cat, and in the TV movie Brexit co-starring Benedict Cumberbatch.
Again, it’s not yet known what specific characters Skarsgård or Soller will be playing in Rogue One. Skarsgård would of course be a good fit as a villain given all the times he’s played heavies in movies, though perhaps he’d like to take a break from playing bad guys (especially since he’s about to play one of the baddest sci-fi bad guys of all in Baron Harkonnen). It’s not yet known exactly when Rogue One will go before cameras or if the show will still be able to make its planned 2021 premiere window, as obviously, all such things are uncertain after the coronavirus pandemic hit. But at least casting continues to take place, which should give fans optimism that the newest Star Wars series will eventually arrive.
Source: Variety