Going Rogue

In 2006, more than a year before the Writers Strike, twelve producers of America’s Next Top Model walked off their job to demand a new contract: as Writers protected by the Writers Guild of America. The production company refused to bargain with the WGA, worried it would set a dangerous precedent by giving Reality TV producers higher wages, residuals and writer credits. The WGA, on the other hand,...

In 2005, Tim Kring took a 5 hour walk with his old friend Jeph Loeb, and pitched him the pilot episode of his new show - Heroes. Inspired by a structural writing challenge, a desire to see good in ordinary people and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, Heroes was one of the biggest new shows of 2006. By the end of 2007, it had all come crashing down. The Writer’s Strike is often held responsible for...

In 2005, an American adaption of a UK cringe-com written by a former Simpsons writer became an unexpected hit on iTunes. So despite middling ratings, the show was given a second season and a second chance. It went on to become the defining sitcom of a generation, and one of the most streamed series of all time. Through every early development of online content, The Office was right there, riding t...

Six months of pre-production. Six months of principal photography. Six weeks in the edit. Quantum of Solace has long been seen as a victim of the Writers Strike. But the strike was just one of many, many roadblocks that the film blissfully drove straight through. Striking Out is a new series of Going Rogue about the 07/08 Writers Guild of America strike, exploring the issues of the strike by looki...

In 2005, Daniel Craig was announced as the new James Bond. On the same day, producer Michael G Wilson mentioned that work had already started on Craig's second Bond film. That film would eventually become Quantum of Solace. And it would be remembered less as a film and more as a casualty of the 2007 Writers Strike.  But how much did the strike really affect Quantum of Solace? Striking Out is a...

In 2007, The Writers Guild of America went on strike. In 2023, they might do it again. So this is season three of Going Rogue: Striking Out. Striking Out starts on May 7th, with weekly episodes. This is basically the same promo as the one at the end of Going Solo but now it has a date attached. For smart threads and dumb memes, follow the show on twitter @GoingRogue_Pod For a daily update on the v...

On a dark summer night on the set of American Graffiti, Ron Howard asked George Lucas what film he wanted to do next. Lucas was shy with details, but he said it was sort of a Buck Rogers film with Stanley Kubrick special effects, but really, really fast. Both Howard and Lucas would go onto wildly successful directorial careers, but while George Lucas was stuck in a galaxy far far away, Howard beca...

Cameras rolled on Solo: A Star Wars Story in early 2017. For six-ish months, Phil Lord and Chris Miller directed their version of the film - a highly stylised, ambitious take on Han Solo’s backstory. But in putting their version to film, Lord and Miller used the filmmaking process they’d honed over decades of work together - improvising, trying things out and throwing things away in pursuit of the...

In 1997, Christopher Miller lucked his way into a meeting with Disney’s TV Animation Department - and he turned them down, because he had to study for midterms. But when he finally did go to LA and meet with Disney, he brought along his best friend, Phil Lord. Twenty years later, Lord and Miller were chosen to direct Solo: A Star Wars Story , after a meteoric rise from writers of oft-cancelled sit...

In October 2012, Lawrence Kasdan was asked if he wanted to write another Star Wars film.  He didn't. But when he went to turn down George Lucas and Kathleen Kennedy in person, someone mentioned they also wanted to make a Han Solo movie.  Five and a half years later, Solo: A Star Wars Story became the first ever Star Wars box office bomb. You think you know what happened, but exactly how...

In December 2016, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was released into the world. With six weeks of reshoots, a painfully short edit, an unexpected election and a new composer after the first one dropped out due to "scheduling issues", the film was finally finished - the day before its premiere. But was it successful? And more importantly, was it political? In this final episode of Going Rogue...

In 2001, The Bourne Identity went through four rounds of reshoots, after going massively over budget and over schedule. The final product, partly directed and potentially edited by producer Frank Marshall instead of director Doug Liman, was a hit. Liman wasn't invited back for the sequel, but writer Tony Gilroy was. In 2016, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story went through six weeks of reshoots and a...

By early 2016, Rogue One had wrapped shooting and moved into the edit. Editors Jabez Olssen and Colin Goudie had been cutting the film since the day cameras rolled, but with director Gareth Edwards's loose, unplanned shooting style and habit of shooting images over story, the edit would take, according to Edwards, "three years". They had nine months. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a co...

In August 2015, cameras rolled on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - and they rolled, and rolled. Gareth Edwards's unconventional shooting style emphasised improvisation not just in performance but also in blocking, camera placement, lighting and all other elements of filming. The film's two distinct shooting styles, initially separated as Empire and Rebellion, started to blur, and the pursuit...

In 2013, Gareth Edwards pretended he was going to get lunch, and instead went to a meeting with Kiri Hart at Lucasfilm. He was one of a handful of promising young directors who'd been handpicked to direct a new Star Wars film, off the strength of his low-budget debut Monsters. Edwards was offered Destroyer of Worlds, originally pitched by VFX legend and Edwards's personal hero, John Knoll....

In 2003, John Knoll heard a rumour on the set of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. It sparked a chain of events that would span two decades, several films and one massive corporate takeover, and would finally result in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. This is the story of Rogue One, told by someone who has spent more time thinking about the film than anyone who worked on it (except John Kno...