Solo: A Star Wars Story apologists, rejoice: Not only is Donald Glover’s proposed spinoff series Lando still happening, but as the star’s brother/creative cohort Stephen Glover revealed this week, it’s being redeveloped as a Star Wars movie.
Whether that means it actually gets to hit theaters in one of the current release date slots held by the franchise or if it’s still destined for Disney Plus is unclear — and might be for some time, since no work on the project can actually take place as long as screenwriter members of the Writers Guild of America remain on strike with hopes of negotiating a contract with the studio-backed Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. But for an idea first floated in 2018 and formally announced in 2020, it’s a promising update —especially for Star Wars fans hankering to go back to the movies.
Solo: A Star Wars Story dropped in the summer of 2018 to lukewarm reactions. Everyone loved Han Solo, but few needed the rogue’s backstory explained. After behind-the-scene shake-ups put the blockbuster in the half-shot prequel in the hands of George Lucas-approved director Ron Howard (Willow), the release was less of a triumphant win for the Star Wars saga than a promised champion limping across the finish line. Not great! But boy, did producer Kathleen Kennedy and her previous two Solo directors, Chris Miller and Phil Lord, who eventually bowed out mid-production, nail the casting!
Alden Ehrenreich, a low-key MVP of this year’s Oppenheimer, found his own footing as Han Solo, Emilia Clarke was so dashing as the femme fatale Qi’ra that Marvel Comics has been compelled to keep a good thing going in the Star Wars books, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge came closest to the spirit of Anthony Daniels’ C-3PO as L3-37 (even if she wound up incarcerated in the mainframe of the Millennium Falcon at the end…). Then there was Glover as Lando, mischievous, slick, and, apparently, pansexual. It was a full blast of ’70s throwback stud energy that reverse-engineered Billy Dee Williams’ original trilogy performance into something fitting of Childish Gambino.
The pitch of a Lando standalone series always made sense, a new hope that Star Wars could both tip its hat to the past — as it always must, it seems — but break off from tradition to find a new vibe in the galaxy. Previously, Dear White People creator Justin Simien was set as showrunner on the Disney Plus version of the series, but reports suggest he has since departed, leaving the project in the hands of Donald and Stephen Glover, who played a major role in crafting the FX series Atlanta.
Stephen Glover kept mum on the direction of Lando when he appeared on the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast earlier this week, but couldn’t help letting it slip that he and Donald are thinking bigger than what a TV series might allow. “The idea right now is to do a movie,” Glover said, squirming a bit over the obvious fact that if he revealed too much both Lucasfilm and likely the WGA would be knocking at his door. “That’s the thing, right now because of the strike, it’s kind of [a game of] telephone.” Variety confirmed late on Thursday with Lucasfilm Ltd. that the project is indeed being developed as a feature film.
Lucasfilm’s Star Wars release schedule is plotted out with dates, but no titles. Currently on the slate: An Untitled Star Wars movie for May 22, 2026, another for Dec. 18, 2026, and a third for Dec. 17, 2027. A few films have actually been announced and could fill those dates as soon as both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA contracts are settled and development/production resumes: A Dave Filoni-directed film that ties up the strands of Mandalorian and Ahsoka; Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny director James Mangold’s Star Wars prequel set 25,000 years before the original trilogy that delves into the origins of the Force; and a movie helmed by documentarian and Ms. Marvel director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy that would pick back up with Rey.
Add Lando to the potential heap — and bet on it? I wouldn’t doubt that kind of Sabacc player.