Rogue One May Be Shot in Hateful Eight’s Super-Widescreen Format

You wouldn’t think a Star Wars movie and a Quentin Tarantino film would have much in common.

But there are some similarities between Gareth Edwards’ upcoming spinoff Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight out in December. Both feature an ensemble cast of characters and are being designed as violent, dark takes on their genres.

More from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

And now, there’s another filmmaking aspect they may share in common: When you see them in the theater, they’re going to look spectacular.

That’s because Hateful Eight, and now reportedly Rogue One, will be shot with a set of camera lenses called Ultra Panavision 70. This means that the cameras used on both movies have more surface area to capture more detail, and the image is much wider than what you normally see in a movie theater.

This was first reported by The Hollywood Reporter a while ago, but a recent report from The Playlist has also lent credence to this rumor.

There’s still a key difference between the two films, though. While Tarantino is shooting on 65mm film, because he’s a die-hard old-school filmmaker, Edwards and cinematographer Greig Fraser are using the Arri Alexa 65mm digital camera.

Rogue One director Gareth Edwards shooting his debut film, Monsters.

Either way, it’s a promising rumor that makes it sound like Rogue One will be heavy on spectacle and epic, elaborate compositions. Imagine going to an IMAX theater and sitting so close to the screen that its boundaries aren’t even inside your field of vision. Now imagine an X-Wing dogfight in Rogue One taking place on that screen.

There’s plenty to like about this news, and it seems to add more evidence that Rogue One is blazing its own way as the first Star Wars spinoff to set the standard for future films set in the universe.

Next: New Leaked Set Footage from Star Wars: The Force Awakens