Solo: A Star Wars Story was all about giving us back story on our favorite intergalactic smuggler. We learned where he came from and how he became the man that we met in Star Wars: A New Hope. However, the film also introduced us to a young Lando Calrissian, and it turns out that at one point, his history could have been quite different. Screenwriter Jon Kasdan recently revealed that Lando very nearly had a brother.
The news comes via a fan on Twitter who posted an image of a character that we never actually see in Solo: A Star Wars Story. The character was part of a sticker book released in the UK, that apparently was finalized long before the movie actually was. Kasdan explained that the character was named Korso, and while he went through a significant evolution over the course of the script writing process, at one early point he was set to be Lando Calrissian's big brother.
All of Beckett's crew is dead by the end of the movie's ill-fated train heist, but it seems that originally, another member died even before then. Korso was the muscle of the group, but he didn't survive the battle on Mimban, the swamp planet where Beckett runs across Han and Chewie. The crew of thieves impersonate Imperial officers but that puts them in the crosshairs of the indigenous people of the planet, and Korso died in the fight.
Korso was played by John Tui in Slo: A Star Wars Story, though his part was eventually cut entirely from the movie. Ultimately it seems the character wasn't needed and so the movie was streamlined.
The character can be seen briefly in an extended version of the Battle of Mimban scene that was released along with the Blu-ray for Solo: A Star Wars Story.
It sounds like Korso was always part of Beckett's gang, but was also Lando Calrissian's brother in an early version of the script. It's possible that this is the reason that Lando would have been recruited in that version of the story. In the movie we saw, Emilia Clarke's Qi'ra knows Lando, and knows he's the man with the ship they need.
A character that ended up on the cutting room floor entirely is little surprise when it comes to Solo: A Star Wars Story. The movie saw a lot of changes when the project and its directors agreed to part ways in the middle of filming. This meant that a lot of the movie was re-shot entirely. The character of Dryden Vos was originally played by Michael K. Williams, but in reshoots Paul Bettany would take over the character.
Although, based on what Jon Kasdan says here, it doesn't sound like Korso was entirely a victim of the director change over, it appears the character survived until very nearly the end, and was ultimately a victim of the final edit.
