10 Movies That Changed Drastically Midway Through Production

Rogue One is one of the most high-profile cases on this list, and by all accounts, the film was not in good shape when director Gareth Edwards handed in his initial cut. Disney executives were reportedly dissatisfied with this version of the film, and ordered extensive reshoots in order to massage it into a better shape.

During this period, a lot of scenes were removed from the film, and a lot were added in, with the ending of the movie being a particular focal point. That now-iconic scene of Vader butchering a corridor of Rebel soldiers? That was added in the reshoots. The final Scarif battle was also different in the original cut, with Jyn and Cassian being chased across a beach (a shot glimpsed in the first trailer), and Cassian and K-2SO dying together outside a bunker, as opposed to their separate deaths in the final cut.

In addition, the introductions of Cassian, Jyn, and Bohdi were all filmed during the reshoots, with the intent being to set up the story better, as well as give each of these characters a bit more definition.

And those are just some of the ones we know about. Actor Ben Mendelsohn told Collider that around 20 or 30 scenes ended up being altered in some way by the final cut, meaning that an entirely different version of the film could, theoretically, be assembled from spare footage.

While the overall story of Rogue One stayed pretty much the same from start to end (for example, it was always planned for the main characters to die), the individual pieces shifted around a lot, and it's a miracle that the movie ended up being as great as it was.