Star Wars: Original Lando Showrunner "Grieving" Over Cancelled Star Wars Disney+ Series

Justin Simien is still processing what happened with Lando.

By Aaron Perine

Former Lando showrunner Justin Simien is still "grieving" his canceled Star Wars Disney+ series. The Haunted Mansion director spoke to Collider about the process of moving on and his Hollywood Black documentary series. It's clear Simien is broken up about how Lando got scuttled and he was replaced by Donald Glover. "It was pretty developed. Yeah, there was a Bible, there was concept art, there were scripts, but it just wasn't meant to be," he revealed. "I get over it. I'm in therapy a lot." So, the filmmaker is working through the rough news in his own way. Simien was supposed to be handling a big Lando Calrissian Disney+ show. It's even more heartbreaking to know that so much work had already been done on the project, and now it may never see the light of day.

"For me, the answer is that you have to really face it. It is true grief. I've never had a child, I've never lost a child, but it's what I imagine that pain might be like," Simien shared. "You pour so much of your heart and soul into something, but ultimately, you don't have control over whether it lives or dies, and it is a true grieving process."

"For me, it has to be done pretty straight on like, 'I am in grief. I do not feel good.' I have to let myself feel those feelings," Simien added. "There's so much that I experience that I get to keep forever and take into the next project. I can't obviously take the storyline or the IP or the characters, but there's so much more that I got, as a maker, and that's mine. Sorry, it's too late, you can't take that part back."

Lando Was In Limbo For A While

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(Photo:

Justin Simien is no longer making Lando.

- Lucasfilm)

Adding to this rough moment is the fact that Simien says that he found out about his departure through the same reports in the media that the fans saw. Lando had been announced ages ago. But, when the news and updates stopped coming through, some fans had begun suspecting that something wasn't right. The director was interviewed by TheWrap. He told them that he was a bit blindsided by the chain of events. He still loves Star Wars and is on good terms with Donald Glover. He was just a bit surprised.

"It was the first time I had gotten any official confirmation at all about what was happening with [Lando]," Simien explained when asked about the timeline. "You'd certainly, like, hear rumors. It's a small town. Donald Glover and I have a lot of mutual friends. So I had some idea of possibilities of what might be happening and why we haven't heard from anybody."

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He added, "The good news is that I'm a huge fan -- truly, genuinely of Donald Glover, and particularly the work that him and his brother do. So I'm also happy to just be a fan and watch it, and sort of get to experience it the way an audience would, because it's certainly what I wanted to see when I said yes to the project."

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