Actress Gina Carano — who formerly played New Republic Marshal Cara Dune on Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni’s hit Star Wars series, The Mandalorian — has faced more than her share of online drama due to her controversial Tweets throughout the airing of The Mandalorian Season 2.
Before Carano was fired by Lucasfilm and The Walt Disney Company in Febraury 2021, hashtags like #FireGinaCarano, #WeLoveCaraDune, and #IStandWithGinaCarano alternately trended on social media.
Carano has been vocal about her distaste for Disney and Lucasfilm, publicly stating that she was “bullied” by the powers-that-be and sharing that her new project, Western movie Terror on the Prairie with Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire, will “take down the Death Star”.
Despite the controversy surrounding the actress — and Lucasfilm’s insistence that they have no plans to bring her back to the Star Wars franchise — there have been rumors that the actress will return for The Mandalorian Season 4, thanks to support from Favreau, Pedro Pascal (Din Djarin), Katee Sackhoff (Bo-Katan Kryze), Ming-Na Wen (Fennec Shand), Giancarlo Esposito (Moff Gideon), and Carl Weathers (Greef Karga).
Now, in a strange turn of events, Disney is actually back in cahoots with Carano and her family thanks to the company’s deal with Casear’s Entertainment.
Last year, The Wall Street Journal reported that “ESPN is seeking to license its brand to major sports-betting companies for at least $3 billion over several years.” Caesar’s Entertainment, Inc. and online sports betting giant DraftKings were both involved in the conversation.
Previously, in 2019, Disney-owned ESPN signed a long-term marketing deal with Caesar’s:
ESPN has announced a wide-ranging deal with Caesars Entertainment that includes the addition of a new ESPN-branded studio at the LINQ Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, where sports-betting-themed content will be created, along with segments for Daily Wager, ESPN’s recently launched sports-betting-related show.
The studio (launching in 2020) will serve as a Vegas home for odds-related content across ESPN platforms. Caesars will also serve as ESPN’s official odds data supplier across TV and digital, receiving associated attribution across ESPN platforms.
This is where the Carano family comes in. Gina, a former women’s MMA and Muay Thai fighter, and her father, Glenn, an ex-NFL backup quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, both have deep ties to sports. But, what many don’t realize is that the Carano family is actually deeply invested (literally) in the casino industry.
Howard Stutz, executive editor of CDC Gaming Reports, tells THR that the Carano family is “deeply rooted” in North Nevada. Gina’s grandfather, Don Carano, founded Eldorado Resorts in the 1970s as well as the McDonald Carano law firm in Nevada, and the Ferrari Carano Vineyard & Winery in Healdsburg, California…
…“[Don’s] sons took over Eldorado Resorts, and they grew it into an amazing gaming company,” Stutz continues of the empire that expanded greatly in July 2020 (three years after Don Carano’s death) when Caesars Entertainment announced that it had completed a merger between Caesars Entertainment Corporation and Eldorado, creating the largest casino and entertainment company in the United States with 55 properties worldwide including eight on the Las Vegas Strip.
This means that, thanks to The Walt Disney Company’s ongoing deal with Caesar’s Entertainment, Gina Carano and her family never really left the Disney fold. What this could mean for the Deadpool actress’s future in the Star Wars universe is anyone’s guess, but the possibilities are certainly intriguing.
