Donald Glover cast as Lando Calrissian for the Star Wars Han Solo spin-off
This deal’s getting better all the time
While 2016 has been a tough year for many people for all sorts of reasons, there’s one man who’s been playing a blinder – Community and The Martian star Donald Glover.
Creating and starring in his sitcom Atlanta and landing a part in upcoming reboot Spider-Man: Homecoming after years of fans begging he be considered to play Peter Parker, the comedian and Grammy-nominated musician has now done the fan casting double by being cast in the Star Wars Han Solo spin-off as a younger version of Billy Dee Williams’ Lando Calrissian. He must have made one hell of a New Year’s resolution.
“We’re so lucky to have an artist as talented as Donald join us,” said Han Solo directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller.
“These are big shoes to fill, and an even bigger cape, and this one fits him perfectly, which will save us money on alterations. Also, we’d like to publicly apologize to Donald for ruining Comic-Con for him forever.”
If you’re not fully aware who Lando is, well, he’s an old frenemy of Han’s (played by Alden Ehrenreich in the upcoming prequel) who appears in 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back and 1983’s Return of the Jedi, sporting one hell of a cape as noted above. Apart from the fact that he used to own the Millennium Falcon before Han won it from him in a bet little is known about Lando’s backstory, meaning this new film has plenty to play with.
Notably, the casting of Glover has particularly excited some fans because of his time in cult sitcom Community, where his character Troy was obsessed with sci-fi (including Star Wars, above), leading to all sorts of appropriately giffable opportunities in the run-up to the film’s release.
Apart from Community fans, one person already excited about the new casting is The Force Awakens’ John Boyega, while co- director Lord took to Twitter to hint at what we can expect from the upcoming movie – lots and lots of cape jokes.
As Han Solo’s OTHER director put it…
The untitled Han Solo Star Wars story will be released in May 2018
Authors
Huw Fullerton is a Commissioning Editor for Radio Times magazine, covering Entertainment, Comedy and Specialist Drama.
