Another day, another piece of juicy Star Wars gossip. Today’s scoop comes from a rather unexpected source, Bloody Disgusting, which has a great track record in its niche but isn’t known for reporting on big blockbuster fare like this. Nevertheless, the site is telling us that it’s been filled in on the main villain of Star Wars: Rogue One, which just yesterday was confirmed to feature the return of Darth Vader.
According to them, the iconic villain will make an appearance, but the main antagonist of the Star Wars Anthology film is actually another familiar face from the franchise: a “Moff character,” likely Grand Moff Tarkin, the eventual commander of the fully functional Death Star. It’s presumed that Ben Mendelsohn is playing that role.
[zerg]In Rogue One, a group of heroes and rascals band together to steal blueprints for the Death Star out from under the Empire’s nose. From the sounds of it, that plot is successful, sending the Empire into a tailspin as it dispatches agents to retrieve the stolen plans. Present in that cadre of agents are Vader and bounty hunters including – and here’s where things get really interesting – Boba Fett, Bossk, Dengar, Zuckuss & 4LOM, IG-88, and Cad Bane, who appeared in The Clone Wars and is making his live action debut.
If that wasn’t enough scoopage for you, Bloody Disgusting’s source says that conversations have taken place about adding a Wookie bounty hunter to the lineup, though that has not been confirmed yet.
Hopefully this source turns out to be legit, because it would be really terrific to see Boba Fett make an on-screen return to the Star Wars universe ahead of the spinoff film he’s rumored to be leading a few years down the line. The other bounty hunters include some fan favorites as well, so it will be great to watch them brought to life and treated as dangerous, deadly villains – particularly Cad Bane, who was one of my favorite parts of Clone Wars.
Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Riz Ahmed, Forest Whitaker and possibly Sam Claflin are starring in Rogue One, which Gareth Edwards (Godzilla) is directing. It’s set to zoom into theaters on December 16, 2016.