The Force was almost with A$AP Rocky.
The Grammy-nominated rapper previously auditioned to play the role of Lando Calrissian in Solo: A Star Wars Story. In an interview with Variety, Rocky shared his brutally honest review of his tryout for Star Wars.
“I auditioned for Star Wars, and my audition was trash,” Rocky told Variety. “I was trash that day.”
The role ultimately went to Donald Glover, who also goes by his musical stage name, Childish Gambino. While Solo failed critically and financially, Glover received positive reviews for his performance, with Rocky being one of his biggest supporters.
“My man Childish Gambino was a way better Lando than I would’ve provided at that time,” Rocky explained. “And I think he looked a little more like [Billy Dee Williams] than me.”
Despite the failed audition, Rocky would happily take another shot at joining the Star Wars universe.
Released in 2018, Solo starred Alden Ehrenreich as Han Solo, a smuggler who will one day become a hero for the Rebel Alliance in the battle against the Galactic Empire. Solo takes place approximately 10 years before Star Wars: A New Hope and chronicles the dangerous heist involving the Kessel Run. The movie introduces Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo), Han’s eventual co-pilot, and Lando, the cunning smuggler who lends him the iconic Millennium Falcon.
Billy Dee Williams originated the role of Lando in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Williams later reappeared as Lando in The Rise of Skywalker.
In December 2020, Lucasfilm announced a Lando limited series at Disney+. Three years later, Stephen Glover, Donald’s brother and collaborator, revealed Lando had shifted from a TV show to a movie. The movie remains in development.
Rocky will next be seen in Highest 2 Lowest, Spike Lee’s crime thriller starring Denzel Washington. The movie will premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. Highest 2 Lowest opens in theaters on August 22 and streams on Apple TV+ on September 5.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.