Even though the word 'allegedly' is being used in the headline, past and present reports are lining up to reveal that Lucasfilm needed to bring in a script doctor to fix some story issues with ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY right around when principle photography started. ROGUE ONE began filming around August/September 2015 so this is information which is dated, but coming out publicly now.
First things first, ILM CCO and Photoshop co-creator John Knoll came up with the idea to tell a heist story of the Rebels who stole the plans for the original Death Star, then Gary Whitta took first crack at the script. Whitta left the film and Chris Weitz was brought in to have fresh eyes continue tweaking the script.
According to a source report from the website BirthMoviesDeath, one of Hollywood's top script doctors Christopher McQuarrie was brought in to clean up the story. He may not get any story or screenplay credits for the movie, but this isn't McQuarrie's first time fixing a script. Most notably, and recently, was his huge fix for World War Z which had big Act III issues that helped cause its release delay six months.
McQuarrie's fix on ROGUE ONE is allegedly one that is being quoted as "saving" the first Disney and Lucasfilm Star Wars spin-off film. This report also corroborates a rumor from October stating McQuarrie was brought on for a couple weeks to work on its script.
McQuarrie has a solid track record with fixing script issues and now that he's helming the Mission Impossible franchise — he wrote and directed Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation and it brought in over $680 million worldwide — it's safe to assume that ROGUE ONE has an even better story after McQuarrie worked his wordsmith magic on it.
ROGUE ONE releases on December 16, 2016.
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