During Friday’s Star Wars Celebration in Japan, Lucasfilm delighted fans by announcing a brand-new feature film, Star Wars: Starfighter, starring Oscar-nominated actor Ryan Gosling. Set to hit theaters in May 2027, this untitled chapter will be directed by Shawn Levy, known for helming Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) and several acclaimed episodes of Stranger Things.
According to Lucasfilm’s press release, Starfighter picks up the saga five years after the climactic events of The Rise of Skywalker (2019), which concluded the Skywalker trilogy and saw the fall of Emperor Palpatine. This upcoming installment promises to chart unfamiliar territory within the Star Wars timeline—an era never portrayed on screen, though it has appeared in certain novels and video games outside the official canon.
Production on the film is slated to begin this fall, as Levy prepares to bring a fresh vision to the galaxy far, far away. Leading the cast, Ryan Gosling—fresh off his third Academy Award nomination for playing Ken in Barbie (2023)—will introduce audiences to a wholly new ensemble of characters, with story details still tightly under wraps.
Since George Lucas first launched the original Star Wars in 1977, the franchise has expanded to nine main saga films (grossing over $5.1 billion worldwide), two standalone features, and seventeen television series spanning both animation and live-action. With Starfighter, Lucasfilm embarks on a daring new adventure that bridges the end of the Skywalker era with unexplored chapters of the galaxy’s history.
Fans can look forward to fresh starships, new heroes—and perhaps a few familiar echoes of the Force—as Starfighter charts unexplored eras and brings Ryan Gosling’s leading man charm to a mythos that continues to captivate audiences around the globe.
