Star Wars release delays, Lando rumors, and Taika Waititi gets to work

Time again for STAR WARS WEEKLY, the SYFY WIRE series that rounds up the most important news of the week from a galaxy far, far away.

Think of us as your own personal Star Wars Holocron.

FILMS PUSHED BACK

The novel coronavirus that has swept through the world is having all kinds of unexpected consequences across all aspects of our lives, including the entertainment calendar. In a world where the rampant spread of this disease continues apace, it’s difficult to gather enough people safely to make a film. It’s doubly difficult to release a movie if the theaters are closed or at reduced capacity. And, since Star Wars on the big screen is still the superior experience, it’s no wonder that this would hamper the release of Star Wars films. 

To that end, Disney has shuffled around its entire release calendar and pushed back the next big-screen Star Wars film by a year. 

A Disney spokesperson offered a statement to The Hollywood Reporter about the date changes: "Over the last few months, it’s become clear that nothing can be set in stone when it comes to how we release films during this global health crisis.”

The film originally slated for Dec. 16, 2022, will now be released Dec. 22, 2023, with a live-action Star Wars film every other year following that. 

TAIKA WAITITI HAS BEGUN WORK

There’s no word on which Star Wars film will be coming out in 2023, but it could very well be Taika Waititi’s. He told the BBC in an interview this week that he has begun the work of writing the film with his co-writer, Krysty Wilson-Cairns.

Rian Johnson has also talked repeatedly about still being in development on his project, so it could be anyone’s guess which one we’ll get in just over three years, but both are exciting prospects. We’ll start our countdown clock and report with as much information as we can find as the years go by.

LANDO RUMORS

From the land of completely unrestrained rumors comes a claim that Donald Glover and Billy Dee Williams both might be returning to the role of Lando Calrissian on Disney+.

These all came from Corey Wolfpack of the Kessel Run Transmissions show, whose tweet appears below.

As of now, these are nothing more than rumors — sourced second-, possibly third-hand. And, just because Lucasfilm is talking about a television show, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will actually get made. But the rumors swelled as they spread across the internet. The "original source" claims that Donald Glover would be coming back, and that snowballed into “Donald Glover is getting his own Lando series.” The part of the rumor that seemed to travel a little slower was the idea that there has been consideration of Billy Dee Williams returning to the character in a Disney+ show. It would, allegedly, follow him as he explored the galaxy with Naomi Ackie’s Rise of Skywalker character Jannah. Presumably, they would seek to discover her real parentage and whether or not Lando Calrissian might actually be her father.

In any of these cases, it’s safest to take these with a grain of salt. Sure, they might have been talked about internally, but any chance of seeing them on the small screen is anyone’s guess.

STAR WARS: SQUADRONS

A number of influential YouTubers, games journalists, and Star Wars fans got a chance to check out Star Wars: Squadrons, the new VR dogfighter/flight simulator coming out in October.

Alex Damon of Star Wars Explained was one of those and they produced a video dropping all the knowledge he discovered during the exclusive demo.

He gives an exhaustive view of each of the different game modes with lots of gameplay footage. If you’re interested in the game, this is a must-watch.

Star Wars: Squadrons comes out on Oct. 2, 2020.

THE MANDALOONEY TUNE

Andre Lacroix is an animator at ILM. He worked on films like Into The Spider-verse and he’s apparently a fan of The Mandalorian. 

To that end, he posted this stunning animation to his Twitter account that he created on his iPad.

It’s shocking, to me, that this could be accomplished on an iPad, but it looks like a lot of fun. He is worth a follow for anything else like this he might post.

Until next week, may the Force be with you!