Cara Dune Role Expected to be Recast After Gina Carano Firing

UPDATE: The Hollywood Reporter has since claimed that a source at Lucasfilm refutes the idea of Cara Dune being recast following Carano’s exit. Original story follows below.

It’s been a whirlwind of a week for Star Wars and its former star Gina Carano who was unexpectedly fired from her part in The Mandalorian after yet another controversial social media post was noticed online. In the time since then it’s been revealed that Lucasfilm had been considering Carano for her own spin-off, but notable didn’t confirm her involvement during Disney Investor Day back in December. Now in a new write-up it’s being reported that eventually her character, Cara Dune, will return in some form and that when she does the part will be recast with a new actress.

In an extensive write-up on Carano’s firing, both the lead-up to and the aftermath of, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that “Insiders say Cara Dune wasn’t part of the Star Wars series next up, a Boba Fett spinoff, but expect that the character will be recast down the road, for both story and merchandising reasons.” The departure of Carano has already had a big effect on the merchandising side of Star Wars, with outstanding orders for new Cara Dune action figures being cancelled by toy maker Hasbro. In a statement, Hasbro said today that “there are no current plans to create more” figures of the character.

Carano herself has revealed that she learned of the firing, and subsequently being dropped by her talent agency, on social media like everyone else. Not to be outdone though, the MMA fighter turned actress revealed she was developing a new project with far-right pundit Ben Shapiro and his Daily Wire outlet.

THR’s write-up on the matter reveals that Carano was previously warned by Lucasfilm about her social media behavior with persons close to her advising she pull back on her rhetoric. It all came to a head last week when Carano made a post conflating persons with conservative view points in the modern era to Jews in the time leading up to Nazi Germany. Unlike other statements she’s made, Carano deleted the post that day, but THR reveals that Lucasfilm executives made the decision at that time to pull the plug. An uncredited statement from Lucasfilm was released at the time reading:

“Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future. Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.”

Lucasfilm has not commented one way or the other on if Cara Dune will be recast in the future, but it wouldn’t be the first time that characters in the Star Wars franchise had been played by a different actor than one previously seen by fans in that galaxy far, far away. Fans are way ahead of Lucasfilm in that regard, campaigning for Lucy Lawless to take over the role.