Star Wars producer Lucasfilm has officially confirmed that a standalone film in the series, starring Ryan Gosling, will go ahead.
Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and chief creative officer Dave Filoni announced the news at the Star Wars Celebration event in Tokyo, with the film’s title revealed as Star Wars: Starfighter and a projected release date in May 2027.
In comments reported by Variety, Gosling told the audience: “Being here and seeing all of you [makes it] more inspiring to do it … It’s such a great reminder of how much movies can mean to us, specifically how much these movies mean to us … All we can hope for is: ‘May the fans be with us.’”
Starfighter is to be directed by Shawn Levy, whose previous film Deadpool & Wolverine was a record-breaking success on its release in 2024, with a screenplay by Your Friends & Neighbors’ Jonathan Tropper.
Levy told the audience: “We’re fans, too. There’s obviously a relationship between these stories and the audience, but we’ve spent our lives in that audience. We know how meaningful it is.”
Kennedy told Deadline in February that Levy’s standalone film would be set “maybe five or six years” after the events of Star Wars Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker, which brought the original nine-film “Skywalker Saga” to a close. Gosling’s role in the film had been rumoured for months, an unusual move for a franchise that prefers somewhat less starry performers who would not overshadow the movies themselves. Mikey Madison, best actress Oscar winner for Anora, reportedly passed on a role playing opposite Gosling in the film.
Lucasfilm also screened new footage from The Mandalorian and Grogu, the next Star Wars film due for release in May 2026, and announced a new Disney+ animated series Maul: Shadow Lord, based on the memorable villain first seen in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, also due to premiere in 2026.
