The fallout of the Gina Carano being let go from “The Mandalorian” story has continued in recent days with a new feature piece over at THR going further into the details.
As we already know, months of problematic social media posts from Carano, capped off by a controversial post many viewed as anti-Semitic, led to Lucasfilm opting not to renew Carano’s contract for a new season.
More recently it came to light that Carano herself learned of her exit through social media, and told conservative pundit Bari Weiss earlier this week that she was warned only once about her social media posts which reportedly included transphobic, anti-mask, anti-vaccination, pro-Insurrection, and pro-fraudulent election conspiracy comments and theories.
She also turned down an apology suggestion Disney wrote in favour of her own, but outlets haven’t been able to find any such apology from her. The Heat Vision piece goes into more detail about Lucasfilm’s actions – indicating the studio warned her many times about her social media behaviour, but the actress refused to listen.
Carano herself had already publicly admitted she and co-star Pedro Pascal (who has a trans sibling) had conversations about pronoun usage – a topic she initially mocked until he educated her about the usage.
Still, she continued to persist with her postings and one source tells the trade: “She knew it was going to alarm people. Why would you put [series creator Jon] Favreau in that position?”. The ultimate decision wasn’t made by Favreau though, rather from the Lucasfilm execs above him.
A spin-off show which Carano would lead or feature in as Cara Dune was in the works and was meant to be unveiled at December Disney’s Investors Day event until her posts promoting election fraud theories in November led Lucasfilm to decide to squash that plan.
Carano was reportedly even negotiating higher pay deals going forward for her own show and potential appearances in the “Rangers of the New Republic” series. That’s all gone now with both Lucasfilm and her agents UTA dropping her, and Hasbro ending production on its popular Cara Dune action figures.
A source at Lucasfilm says a recasting is not expected, and the Cara Dune character will most likely be written out of the show. Another source says the actions aren’t about politics for Disney and this is about a famously averse to risk family-friendly corporation wanting to avoid controversy.
The company came under fire previously for not taking more strong action to defend their “Star Wars” sequel trilogy cast members John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran from racist bullying online. The stance taken here against offensive behaviour aims to send an inclusive message to both employees and fans from marginalized backgrounds to show that they are valued.
Source: Heat Vision
