The Star Wars feature project that teams Ryan Gosling with director Shawn Levy has a name and a release date.
Star Wars: Starfighter will open on May 28, 2027. That’s just three weeks after fellow mega-Disney title, Avengers: Secret Wars, which bows on May 7, 2027.
The announcement was made in Tokyo, Japan at a packed panel at Star Wars Celebration, the biennial convention that fêtes all manner of things related to Jedis, Siths, and other creations from the galaxy far, far away. It’s unclear if the title has any connection to the 2001 computer game of the same game.
“The reality is that this script is just so good. It has such a great story with great and original characters,” said Gosling from the stage. “It’s filled with so much heart and adventure, and there just really is not a more perfect filmmaker for this particular story than Shawn.”
After Gosling took the stage, a picture flashed on the screen of his childhood Star Wars bedsheets, which was sent in by his mom.
“She still has them, obviously,” Gosling joked. “Naturally, she thought that it might be something that the fans would appreciate, but I suspect that she just sort of wants to justify years of hoarding.” He added: “As you can see from the picture, I guess I was probably dreaming about Star Wars before I even saw the film. And it’s probably framed my idea of what a movie even was.”
Levy has been developing the Star Wars feature since 2022 and Jonathan Tropper, who collaborated with Levy on films such as This Is Where I Leave You and The Adam Project, wrote the script.
It would take an IT-O interrogation droid to coax any plot details from the pair, but the movie has been heating up in Hollywood casting circles in recent weeks. While many names have bubbled up only to prove to be incorrect, there does seem to be a search for a teenaged actor to play opposite Gosling’s mystery man and for a male and female villain.
The film is a standalone movie that will be unconnected to the so-called Skywalker Saga, the stories centered on well-established and beloved characters Luke Skywalker and his father, Anakin. The events of Starfighter take place approximately five years after the events of 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
“This is a standalone. It’s not a prequel, not sequel. It’s a new adventure. It’s set in a period of time that we haven’t seen explored yet,” said Levy, who noted it will be set a few years after Rise of Skywalker. He added that production starts this fall.
There is high interest in the Levy-Gosling project as it will be only the second feature made since 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, a movie whose reception threw the Star Wars movie plans into disarray. The first movie since Skywalker will be The Mandalorian and Grogu, a movie spinoff based on the popular Disney+ series The Mandalorian. That movie is in post-production and is scheduled for a May 22, 2026 release.
