Tony Gilroy Admits He May Never Tackle Another Project As Bold As ‘Andor’ Again

The celebrated showrunner and creator of the critically acclaimed series Andor, Tony Gilroy, has said that he cannot imagine doing something of its sort again. It is a journey that has taken George Lucas five-and-a-half years and to which he will refer, during the course of this revelation, as the seminal creative experience of his life. 

The series, he says he considers eight movies made over five years, required his full imaginative input at all stages, on a daily basis, whether it be writing and designing, music and casting. Such sustained involvement, though intellectually thrilling, is an ecstatic and all-consuming environment in which to reside, and returning to this degree of impending involvement is unlikely, at least in such an ambitious, long-term undertaking, on the part of the filmmaker.

The Unprecedented Scale of Andor‘s Production

Andor is an immense production that made it even different than other television shows. Its huge budget, around more than 600 million dollars for 2 seasons, enabled a down to earth, sensible view towards filmmaking. As Gilroy has observed, this expression of creative freedom required the protection of key people at Lucasfilm and Disney and it is this freedom that enabled the show to become a reality.

The original series pitch was even more so: a five-year arc over five seasons. Nonetheless, Gilroy and his team discovered that this would not be practical because of the laboriousness and the huge investment involved. The compromise solution of the final structure of two seasons with a total of 24 episodes, making three episodes a year, was interesting and kept the scope of the show intact and made it a viable one. Such a distinctive approach to production (with an emphasis on quality and artistic imagination rather than speed and saving money) is one of the reasons why Gilroy believes a project like this is a rare thing.

Gilroy’s Post-Andor Creative Direction

In the future, Gilroy now is moving over to different and more localized projects. His feature script Behemoth! is a script he is planning to direct with Oscar Isaac attached as starring actress. The film has been categorized as a drama concerning a cellist and the movie scoring world. This shift to being a feature film again and having the story based in a more realistic environment as opposed to an enormous sci-fi universe gives context to a wish to create something on a different order.

Having been in the world of Star Wars throughout the past decade between him being involved in Rogue One to Andor, Gilroy deciding to venture further into new and original work indicates that it is a different time and a different direction in terms of his career. The short answer is that, although the experience of making Andor was transformative, the workload, day to day, of such a wide show is not something he is eager to repeat.

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