Breaking news out of The Hollywood Reporter tonight as we learn that Billy Dee Williams is likely to be returning as Lando Calrissian in Star Wars Episode IX. Not many details are known at this time, but we do know that he confirmed that he would not be attending an upcoming convention due to scheduling conflicts due to upcoming filming scheduled in September. After the characters of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo died in the last two saga films and with the tragic passing of Carrie Fisher in 2016, many fans clamored for Billy to make his triumphant return to the big screen in Episode IX to give one last nostalgic push to the sequel trilogy. Donald Glover gave a great performance as a younger incarnation of the suave baron of smooth in this summer’s Solo: A Star Wars Story which got a lot of stellar reviews and an ecstatic call for more Lando content moving forward.
However, Billy Dee Williams has returned to lend his voice to his character on the critically acclaimed Star Wars: Rebels animated series in seasons 1 and 2 (with some brief mentions in seasons 3 and 4) then returned to voice the character again in EA’s Battlefront II (2017) for the campaign and multiplayer. Marvel Comics previously did a Lando miniseries back in 2015 leading up to the release of The Force Awakens titled Star Wars: Lando. Since then, Lando has appeared in multiple issues of the Star Wars mainline comic and Marvel Comics is currently in the middle of their Lando: Double or Nothing miniseries comic run which sheds more light on the adventures of Lando and L3-37. With two issues out and three more left, there are still plenty of stories to tell for everyone’s (second) favorite young gambler. He has also reappeared in two separate short stories in IDW’s Star Wars: Adventures comic line and also in different eras in Daniel Jose Older’s action-packed novel: Last Shot. Lando is also set to appear in the Flight of the Falcon book series on October 2, 2018 in Lando’s Luck.
Filming for the heavily anticipated and still untitled Episode IX begins at the end of July. As other casting rumors continue to swirl online (Keri Russell, Mark Hamill), we will keep our eyes peeled for any official cast news coming soon.
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Stay tuned in the coming days and weeks to Scavenger’s Holocron as we learn more on this developing story. We are still awaiting an official press release from Lucasfilm at this time to confirm the reports.
Scavenger’s Holocron… All Your Star Wars Intel!
