James Mangold Debunks Rumor That He’s Joining The Baby Yoda Club And Directing Episodes Of ‘The Mandalorian’ Season 2

It’s that tale as old as time, someone reports a list of directors for a big project and at least one of them turns out not to be involved at all. Turns out, while we don’t know a lot about season 2 of “The Mandalorian” we definitely know one thing, that James Mangold is definitely not going to direct an episode of the Baby Yoda show featuring Mando.

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On Thursday, IGN posted a news report based on an episode of the YouTube show Black Series Rebels where a supposed list of directors for the second season of the Disney+ hit show was posted. According to the report, Bryce Dallas Howard would return to the series after directing an episode of season 1 (one of the best ones). Additionally, Mangold and Robert Rodriguez would reportedly direct parts of season 2, not entire episodes, mind you, but segments of an episode.

Late last night, Ron Howard accidentally spread the news on Twitter, either not knowing if the report was true or not, or inadvertently revealing that Bryce Dallas Howard will indeed return to the show. Shortly thereafter, James Mangold himself took to Twitter to respond to the report, offering congratulations “if it’s true about Bryce directing another part of Mandalorian,” before explaining that the news is at least partially untrue and mocking fans and outlets that report unconfirmed facts. “I can tell you its not true about me. Not doing it, never discussed it. And I suggest fans should look at who’s ‘reporting’ this & make a note that these sites present conjecture as fact.”

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Not to be left behind, “The Mandalorian” director and current “Star Wars” denier, Taika Waititi replied to Mangold, mocking the false news and also the infamous “The Star Wars Holiday Special” . “Don’t lie, James. Be proud of your Mangoldorian Christmas Special.” We may not know if Robert Rodriguez is actually a part of the new season (though that would be amazing) but we do know that “The Mandalorian” will return in October 2020.