'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' director says one classic character won't make a comeback

November 21, 2017

[Photo by: Lucasfilm]

Maybe it doesn't work every time. One classic character from the Star Wars universe won't be returning in this December's Star Wars: The Last Jedi, despite a swell of fan speculation online, the movie's director now confirms.

As reported by NME, The Last Jedi filmmaker Rian Johnson has confessed that ol' Lando Calrissian isn't making a surprise cameo in the upcoming flick.

Apparently, the first trailer for the new Star Wars movie had some viewers noting its similarities to 1980's The Empire Strikes Back, the film in which actor Billy Dee Williams portrays Lando, friend of Han Solo and smooth-talking smuggler who hands his Rebel friends over to the Empire. While fans may have hoped for a Lando reprisal, Johnson says it was never in the cards.

“He's not in the film and it was never really something that came up,” Johnson tells Entertainment Weekly. “I loved that character. It would have been fun to see him but it's just not something that ever really had a place in the story.”

Even still, Williams' manager is telling Johnson and crew that they can hit the guy up anytime, saying, “Billy respects the studio and all involved in the decision but would be happy to be in any future Star Wars film, if asked.”

Don't count the character of Lando out just yet, though: It's already been revealed that actor Donald Glover will play the infamous Cloud City administrator in the new Han Solo spinoff movie, Solo: A Star Wars Story.

And, you know, maybe Billy Dee Williams is just too busy knockin' back Colt 45's with Blink-182's Mark Hoppus—”hanging out in the cantina on Mos Eisley“—to reprise his role as Lando in the current trilogy. Uh… “It works every time…” ?