Star Wars Rogue One ordered to reshoot 40% of its content
Fans were in panic, speculations ran wild and a lot of people thought it would spell the doom for the first standalone Star Wars film, Rogue One, when the whole cast was called back to London for reshoots.
However, it’s not as bad as people may have thought. The release date has not been changed and sources within the production team told fans that it’s mostly filler that needs to be filmed. They also killed off the rumour that the reshoot is ordered by Disney, to give the film a more classic Star Wars feel. The film will be its own film, separate from both the feel and the themes of the saga.
Star Trek Axanar lawsuit dropped
There has long been an understanding that you can create Star Trek fanfilms without risk of being sued. It is the series with the most fan versions in the world, after all. This wasn’t entirely true, as the team behind Axanar discovered.
The unofficial “fanfilm clause” in the licencing of the series only extends to shows and films that makes no profit. The team has to date raised over US$1 million in donations from both the public and corporations to help with filming.
Paramount filed a lawsuit for copyright infringement and it looked like it was going to be a drawn out battle in the court. However, producer JJ Abrams and director Justin Lin managed to convince Paramount to drop the lawsuit, stating
“this was not an appropriate way to deal with the fans, the fans should be celebrating this thing. Fans of Star Trek are part of this world” -JJ Abrams
There are still some details for the lawyers to iron out, but CBS confirmed that the project is good to go again. They are also working on guidelines for how to use the Star Trek licence for fan productions, to avoid this problem in the future.