Just like at this time last year all we were hearing about was The Force Awakens, these next couple of months are going to see a lot of marketing for Disney's Rogue One which hits in December. But aside from an announcement about who would be playing the lead role of Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich), we haven't heard much more about the upcoming spin-off movie. The film is expected to hit theater in May of 2018, and will be helmed by 21 Jump Street directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord. Now we also know who will be playing another key role in the film, and its a very familiar name. Donald Glover (The Martian) has been officially cast as the young version of Billy Dee William's Lando Calrissian, the close friend of Solo who you'll remember from Empire Strikes Back.
The news was announced by the Starwars website themselves, who confirmed that the young actor will be playing the iconic role. Glover had already been rumored to play Calrissian for sometime, but the studio was looking at a shortlist of actors just like they did for young Han. Glover who is known for his acting work as well as his rap career as Childish Gambino has recently had a lot of success from his new FX show Atlanta. Glover was supposedly the first choice for the role, and it seems Lord and Miller got what they wanted. In the press release the directors described how excited they are to work with Glover: “We’re so lucky to have an artist as talented as Donald join us.”
Its unknown how important Lando will be to the film, but considering his close friendship to Han and how big of a star Glover is, we can probably expect him to have a lot of screen time. Fans will remember that Lando actually lost the Millennium Falcon to Han, so this film will probably finally show us how that happened. Lando will also just be a scoundrel in the galaxy at this point in his life, before his time as an administrator on Cloud City. The friendship between Han and Lando is something that has been loved by fans since the original films came out, so it'll be nice to see the character finally back on the big screen.
So what do you think of Glover playing Lando? Would you have liked to see someone else in the role? Let us know below!
