Many of the classics we admire and appreciate today weren’t hits on their initial release; Blade Runner, The Shawshank Redemption and The Blues Brothers to name just three, but a film that was received like an instant classic when it was released and for every day since is Rogue One, and now with the luxurious benefit of serving as a sequel to its spin-off show Andor the film is (if possible) held in even higher regard. Speaking about his monster hit Jurassic World Rebirth ($322.5M in its opening weekend, the second highest of the series behind only 2015’s Jurassic World) Gareth Edwards was asked about his feeling towards Rogue One, and in classic Gareth fashion he was self-effacing and modest about a film that saga fans both new and old have very much taken to their hearts.
“I mean, I’m just eternally relieved that I don’t walk across the street and people don’t shout that I ruined their childhood. It’s a bit like [Jurassic World Rebirth]. I hate the word ‘franchise’, really, and ‘IP’. It sort of diminishes… Like, to me, these movies were sort of semi-religious experiences as a kid, watching them, and so they mean a lot.”
“I’ve always felt – and I don’t hold any of my films in high regard like this – but I do think that, really, the test of a movie is how it’s viewed, 10, 20 years later. Obviously, there’s this anticipation with what everyone’s going to think when a film comes out. But really, you would always take the… I look at a lot of my heroes, and they would tell stories, and it seems unbelievable, like I was reading the other day about John Carpenter and The Thing, and how it flopped, and how he couldn’t work for a while, and things like this.
“And you go, ‘What, after The Thing?’ Like, that’s a masterpiece. It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever, but he obviously rode that roller coaster a little bit. And so it teaches you as a filmmaker, don’t ride the roller coaster, play the long-term game. It’s all about how people feel towards the end of your career, really, and so just hold on to that.”
