Filmmaker Justin Simien has been out promoting his new docuseries for MGM+. Hollywood Black examines race and representation in Hollywood. While out doing the promotion he spoke about his original plans for the Donald Glover-led spin-off from Solo: A Star Wars Story – Lando.
Simien directed Dear White People and the notorious Disney flop The Haunted Mansion. As far back as December 2020 this project was in the works, meant as a streaming series for Disney+.
Then it was retooled as a film, and when Glover and his brother Stephen Glover were attached to re-write, Simien exited.
In an interview with Collider, he had plenty to say about Lando, and how far he had taken it:
“It was pretty developed. There was a Bible. There was concept art. There were scripts. But it just wasn’t meant to be. For me, it has to be done pretty straight on. Like, ‘I am in grief. I do not feel good.’ I have to let myself feel those feelings.
There’s so much that I experience that I get to keep forever and take into the next project. I can’t obviously take the storyline or the IP or the characters, but there’s so much more that I got, as a maker, and that’s mine.”
Jumping from one space-based mega-franchise to another, Simien was just announced as one of the team behind the upcoming Star Trek comedy, alongside Tawny Newsome.
Lando, meanwhile, seems to have gone very quiet. Yet another announced Star Wars movie to be quietly shelved by the chaos makers at Lucasfilm?