“Rogue One” was, by all accounts, a difficult production, with extensive reshoots that reportedly changed most of the original third act. Reportedly, the film’s credited co-writer Tony Gilroy even took over some of the directing duties from Edwards, prior to creating the spinoff series “Andor.”
For Edwards, the expectations and pressure of having a massive budget proved daunting. “It was kind of a shock to have all the money you could ever want, and still be limited,” the director said. “I felt like if I could somehow get that big bag of cash and send it back in time to me when I was making ‘Monsters,’ the possibilities would have been infinite. And so, in a weird way, I was trying to find that kind of scenario again. I was as much interested in the process of how to make the film as I was the idea.”
It was this desire to bring back the low-budget experience of working on “Monsters” that drove Edwards to make sure his latest film, “The Creator,” was creatively satisfying while still working within the studio system. The solution, the director explained, came down to the budget. “The initial trick was for this to not be a big-budget movie. If it’s big-budget, crazy money, I think we would have scared everyone off,” he said, having initially designed the film to be done cheaply while still having a massive scope. “The reality is, I don’t know how I would have pulled off like 1,000 VFX shots of robots.”
“The Creator” opens in theaters on September 29, 2023.