Justin Simien says the Donald Glover-starring Solo: A Star Wars Story spinoff series Lando will not be happening.
Collider published remarks Friday from Simien indicating that Lando is dead.
Simien is out promoting Hollywood Black, an MGM+ docuseries based on the book by scholar Donald Bogle examining race and representation in Hollywood. That’s when the Lando project came up.
“It was pretty developed,” he said. “There was a Bible. There was concept art. There were scripts. But it just wasn’t meant to be.”
He added that he grieved for the project.
“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,” he said. “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. Sorry, it’s too late, you can’t take that part back.”
Lando was first announced in 2020. Glover’s Lando was the breakout star of Solo, and Simien had three seasons of Dear White People, the series he created, directed, and wrote for Netflix. It all seemed ready to pop.
Why Lando fell through the cracks at Disney+ is still unclear. But Simien has plenty on his plate.
Simien has a live-action Star Trek comedy series starring Tawny Newsome on the way, announced at San Diego Comic-Con. The logline: “Federation outsiders serving a gleaming resort planet find out their day-to-day exploits are being broadcast to the entire quadrant.”
“I literally grew up watching that show and wishing I could go to space,” Simien told Collider about the Star Trek project. I’m living that childhood dream right now.”
Hollywood Black will premiere on August 11 on MGM+.