Ryan Gosling is going to a galaxy far, far away. On Friday, Lucasfilm confirmed that the Barbie star will lead a new Star Wars film, Star Wars: Starfighter, helmed by Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy.
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Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and chief creative officer Dave Filoni announced the plans for Starfighter at Lucasfilm’s annual Star Wars Celebration event in Tokyo, where Gosling and Levy appeared via livestream.
“Being here and seeing all of you [makes it] more inspiring to do it. There’s so much creativity and imagination in this room and there’s so much love. It’s such a great reminder of how much movies can mean to us, specifically how much these movies mean to us,” Gosling said at the end of the presentation. “The force is a mysterious thing, but, as I’m here, the force is the fans. All we can hope for is, ‘May the fans be with us.’”
“We’re fans too,” Levy added. “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.”
Variety reports that Starfighter will be a standalone project that focuses on new characters in the Star Wars universe and is not connected to the Skywalker Saga. This Is Where I Leave You screenwriter Jonathan Tropper is attached to write the script. The film will take place roughly five years after the events of Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker (2019), currently the final film in the chronological Star Wars timeline.
While Gosling is joining the Star Wars cinematic universe, there have been reports of a recent Oscar winner turning down a role in the upcoming film. According to Variety, Anora star Mikey Madison was offered a part in Star Wars: Starfighter, but ultimately decided to pass. No other casting details have been announced.
Starfighter marks Levy’s first project since his massively successful Deadpool & Wolverine, which earned over $1.3 billion at the box office in July 2024 and currently stands as the top grossing R-rated movie of all time. After earning an Oscar nomination for Barbie, Gosling has starred in the action-comedy The Fall Guy opposite Emily Blunt. There are also rumors of a Ken-centric Barbie sequel in the works from Greta Gerwig.
But that may have to wait as Star Wars: Starfighter is scheduled to go into production this fall. The film is set to follow The Mandalorian & Grogu, a film expansion of the Disney+ series The Mandalorian, which is set to hit theaters on May 22, 2026. Starfighter is currently scheduled for a theatrical release on May 28, 2027.
