Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Cast Officially Announced

From the D23 Expo in Anaheim, Calif., Lucasfilm has released the first photo of the cast of Rogue One.

The cast includes Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, Alan Tudyk, Mads Mikkelsen, Forest Whitaker, and Riz Ahmed.

Rogue One is the first Star Wars Story standalone film, and tells the tale of the ragged crew who steals the plans for the Death Star from The Empire. The film is being directed by Gareth Edwards.

"Rogue One takes place before the events of Star Wars: A New Hope and will be a departure from the saga films but have elements that are familiar to the Star Wars universe," says Kathleen Kennedy. "It goes into new territory, exploring the galactic struggle from a ground-war perspective while maintaining that essential Star Wars feel that fans have come to know. Gareth is such an innovative director and I'm so excited to be working with him and the extraordinary ensemble cast he's selected for Rogue One."

Veteran ILM visual effects supervisor John Knoll, who shares a long history with the Star Wars movies, dating back to the mid-1990s, originated the idea for the movie. Allison Shearmur, John Knoll, Simon Emanuel and Jason McGatlin are executive producers. Kiri Hart and John Swartz are co-producers.

To create the lived-in, realistic feel of "Rogue One," Edwards chose Greig Fraser to be his director of photography and Neil Corbould to be his special effects supervisor. Star Wars and Lucasfilm veteran Doug Chiang and Neil Lamont will be the production designers. Additional crew members will include stunt coordinator Rob Inch, creature effects supervisor Neal Scanlan and co-costume designers Dave Crossman and Glyn Dillon.

Check out when Rogue Oneand other movies are coming out in ComicBook.com's Movie Release Schedule.