'Star Wars': Lando and Taika Waititi Projects Still in the Works (Exclusive)

There's finally an update on the Lando and Taika Waititi Star Wars projects. Yes, they're still happening, though it's still very much unclear exactly as to when.

ET's Ash Crossan spoke to Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy at the Star Wars Celebration event in London, and she essentially reminded fans that no project is ever completely dead in Hollywood. When asked about the Lando series and Waititi's Star Wars project, Kennedy said they're undoubtedly still in the works.

"Oh yeah, all that's underway," she told ET. "There's no pivot. No pivot. It's all underway. Taika's a little slow. Everybody's busy, but yeah. Those are great projects and we're definitely still doing them."

Kennedy's comments on the Lando series for Disney+, whose development was first announced in December 2020, comes on the heels of Donald Glover telling GQ earlier this week that he's in talks to reprise Lando Calrissian, the role he portrayed in Ron Howard's 2018 Solo: A Star Wars Story.

"We're talking about it," he told the men's fashion magazine. "That's as much as I can say without Kathleen Kennedy hunting me down."

Glover went on to say that he "would love to play Lando again" because "it's a fun time being him."

"It just has to be the right way to do it," he added. "Time is precious. The past couple of years, this pandemic s**t, it really had people experiencing time. People realize their time is valuable. You only get so much. I'm not interested in doing anything that's going to be a waste of my time or just a paycheck. I'd much rather spend time with people that I enjoy. It just has to be the right thing, and I think it could be. Lando is definitely somebody I like to hang out with."

As for Waititi, fans will recall he first played coy with ET back in February 2020 when asked about a possible Star Wars project. Then, perhaps not uncoincidentally on May 4 of that year, it was officially confirmed that Waititi would direct his first Star Wars feature film.

At the time, it was said the Oscar winner would co-write the screenplay with Krysty Wilson-Cairns, herself an Academy Award nominee for 1917. The exact details on the project and its progress, though, are still under wraps. But this much is clear: the projects are happening.

The update comes on the heels of news that Daisy Ridley will reprise her role as Rey for an upcoming Star Wars movie. What's more, Kennedy also announced at the Star Wars event that James Mangold and Dave Filoni will direct two separate Star Wars films.

Mangold, who just directed the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, "will take audiences deep into the past, telling the tale of the first Jedi to wield the Force and harness it as a liberating power in an era of chaos and oppression."

And, in the present, Filoni "will orchestrate the escalating war between the Imperial Remnant and the fledgling New Republic. Alongside producer Jon Favreau, they will bring together many of the threads of the Star Wars original series in a cinematic event."

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