Ryan Gosling has been confirmed as the lead of a new Star Wars film, titled Star Wars: Starfighter.
The standalone story, directed by Shawn Levy (Deadpool & Wolverine), will launch in cinemas on May 7, 2027.
It marks a departure from the Skywalker saga and the recent sequels starring Daisy Ridley, offering a fresh narrative within the Star Wars universe.
Further details about the story are yet to be revealed.
Speaking at Star Wars Celebration in Tokyo, Gosling praised the script's originality and heart.
He expressed confidence in Levy's direction, saying: "The reality is that this script is just so good. It has such a great story with great and original characters. 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."
Gosling’s childhood Star Wars bedsheets were shown on the screen at the event.
“As you can see from the picture, I guess I was probably dreaming about Star Wars before I even saw the film,” he said.
“And it’s probably framed my idea of what a movie even was.”
The Canadian actor was nominated for an Oscar for playing Ken in Barbie, and is also known for musical La La Land and romance The Notebook.
Levy said the new space adventure is “not a prequel, not [a] sequel, it’s a new adventure. It’s set in a period of time that we haven’t seen explored yet”.
His previous film Deadpool & Wolverine, starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, was one of the highest-grossing movies of 2024.
It made more than US $1 billion at the box office.
The Star Wars franchise’s live action spin-offs have so far not been as successful as the main trilogies, aside from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story starring Diego Luna.
The next movie release is set to be The Mandalorian And Grogu, a sequel to the Disney+ series The Mandalorian starring Pedro Pascal as a bounty hunter.
The fan event showed footage of Alien actress Sigourney Weaver as someone who appears to have hired Din Djarin (Pascal), and the appearance of Jeremy Allen White as Rotta the Hutt, the son of slug-like crimelord Jabba the Hutt.
The new film sees The Mandalorian TV series creator Jon Favreau return to direct and produce, alongside Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and chief content officer Dave Filoni as producers.
The event also confirmed that a new trilogy of Star Wars movies is in “ongoing development” from James Mangold, who was recently nominated for an Oscar for Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown.
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who will direct the upcoming Ridley movie which sees her return as Jedi Knight Rey after the events of 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker, and What We Do In The Shadows filmmaker Taika Waititi are also part of the project.
Ridley played Rey in 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens and 2017’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which saw appearance from original characters Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia, Harrison Ford as Han Solo and Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker.
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