Update: Rooney Mara, Tatiana Maslany & others testing for Star Wars spinoff

January 21st 2015, 8:16pm

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

UPDATE: Variety‘s Justin Kroll has tweeted a fourth actress tested, Rooney Mara’s sister, Kate Mara. Kate has four movies coming to theaters in 2015, including CAPTIVE, THE FANTASTIC FOUR, MAN DOWN, and THE MARTIAN. The original story follows:

Pre-production is underway on the standalone STAR WARS film, an untitled STAR WARS SPIN-OFF to be directed by Gareth Edwards (GODZILLA), and things are definitely getting exciting. Two weeks ago Gary Whitta, who was the first writer on the project and had been working with Edwards on the script for a year, left the film. A movie still has to be made and it seems to be moving forward as production is set to get underway this year. It’s been revealed that Rooney Mara, Tatiana Maslany, and Felicity Jones are in the testing stages for the film’s lead role. There is so much talent and beauty there, this is just awesome!

THR reports that Maslany, who stars in the BBC America series Orphan Black, is testing for the female lead in the film, and Mara is up this week for the task. My favorite of the selection though has to be Felicity Jones; she recently starred in THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING and received an Oscar nomination for the performance. Sadly she’s said to be on the “wantlist” as there may be scheduling issues wither her upcoming work on Ron Howard’s Da Vinci Code sequel INFERNO this year.

This news makes me happy for two reasons: they are putting a strong talented female in the lead role of a STAR WARS film and they are not making a big sexist deal about it – I’m looking at you GHOSTBUSTERS reboot. I’ll be glad to see any of these actresses land the part; they all deserve a blockbuster like this to make that deserving spotlight a little bigger.

The STAR WARS SPIN-OFF will be released on December 16, 2016, followed by Star Wars: Episode VIII written and directed by Rian Johnson in December 2017. Josh Trank is also currently attached to helm a Star Wars spinoff for a release in 2018.

Source: THR