Donald Glover (Childish Gambino, Atlanta) and his brother Stephen Glover (Atlanta, House Party) have signed with Disney+ to create and write a Lando Calrissian limited series.
News first broke of a Lando Calrissian limited series in development back in December 2020. At the time, “Dear White People” creator Justin Simien was attached to the project. He apparently left, and went on to direct the new Haunted Mansion movie, out now. The current deal was made prior to the WGA and SAG strikes.
Originally played by Billy Dee Williams in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, Donald first stepped into the iconic role in 2018’s “Star Wars” prequel movie Solo, directed by Ron Howard. This April Donald said: “I would love to play Lando again. It’s a fun time, being him. It just has to be the right way to do it. Time is precious…Lando is definitely somebody I like to hang out with,” he told GQ. He went on: “We’re talking about it,” before humorously stating, “That’s as much as I can say without Kathleen Kennedy hunting me down.”
Kennedy herself has been a bit cagey about the subject as well. “You need to ask Donald. He’s the one that holds all the cards here, Kennedy told CinemaBlend at Star Wars Celebration 2022. Part of her need to be vague is much of LucasFilms resources go to Dave Filoni’s upcoming MandoVerse crossover film, TV shows like Ahsoka, The Mandalorian, and Skeleton Crew and their active productions. And the Glover’s are very busy, Donald is in the hit Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Stephen wrote the House Party movie. It looks like they are back to TV.
The news was first reported by Above the Line. Lando does not currently have a release date, nor does any new series or season, until the righteous strike is resolved. Any news at this point is a sign a project has lots of support.
-30-
David Raiklen wrote, directed and scored his first film at age 9. He began studying keyboard and composing at age 5. He attended, then taught at UCLA, USC and CalArts. Among his teachers are John Williams and Mel Powel.
He has worked for Fox, Disney and Sprint. David has received numerous awards for his work, including the 2004 American Music Center Award. Dr. Raiklen has composed music and sound design for theater (Death and the Maiden), dance (Russian Ballet), television (Sing Me a Story), cell phone (Spacey Movie), museums (Museum of Tolerance), concert (Violin Sonata ), and film (Appalachian Trail).
His compositions have been performed at the Hollywood Bowl and the first Disney Hall. David Raiken is also host of a successful radio program, Classical Fan Club.
