Star Wars Celebration Japan: Shawn Levy and Ryan Gosling announce Star Wars: Starfighter movie

April 18th, 2025 by Marc Comments

While Day One of Star Wars Celebration was exciting for Darth Maul fans and Mandalorian fans, it was the new project on the horizon that seems to have caused the most excitement.

Early on in the day, we learned that Star Wars films by James Mangold, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Taika Waititi and a new trilogy by Simon Kinberg are all still in ongoing development, however, it was when Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy stepped on stage that things got pretty exciting.

We’ve heard for a while that Levy was developing a Star Wars movie and, most interestingly, that Drive and Blade Runner 2049 star Ryan Gosling was set to join the galaxy far, far away and Levy to the stage at Celebration and confirmed the news in real style, bringing Gosling on stage:

Ryan Gosling makes his Star Wars Celebration debut:

Joining Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and chief creative officer Dave Filoni on stage, Levy and Gosling revealed that the new movie will be called Star Wars: Starfighter and will be a completely standalone adventure in this universe – although not mentioned at Celebration, there has been rumours that some familair faces may come in and out of the movie in small roles.

TIDBIT: Daniel RPK reports: the movie will follow “a 15-year-old boy on a mission
with his uncle (Ryan Gosling) as they’re being pursued by a duo of villains.”

Again, not mentioned at Celebration, but there’s also talk that Black Mirror and Breaking Bad star Jesse Plemons is in talks for the villain role, while Scream and Anora star and Oscar-Winner Mikey Madison turned down an undisclosed role in the movie.

The movie’s logo:

The movie will take place in a new timeline in the Star Wars universe, set about five years after the sequle trilogy, Gosling will be a completely new character and the story will be based around him.

“The reality is that this script is just so good,” Gosling said, “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.”

Proving Gosling is a long-time Star Wars fan, his mum (love this!) sent in a picture of the actor’s Star Wars bedsheets when he was a child:

“She still has them,” Gosling said, adding: “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.

“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.”

Last week, the movie’s writer Jonathan Tropper, hinted that the movie was coming sooner than we think and Levy said at the event that the movie is no-longer in pre-production, it’s now in development, with filming happening after the summer.

Tidbit: Five major actors have reportedly turned down offers to star the film according to Daniel RPK: Jodie Comer (villain), Jesse Plemons (villain), Mikey Madison (villain), Greta Lee (a cantina owner), Sarah Snook (the main character’s mother)

“This is a stand-alone. It’s 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,” Levy said.

This is a very exciting time again for Star Wars and in the next two years, we will have Maul: Shadow Lord, Ahsoka season 2, which Dave Filoni has confirmed will begin filming before the end of April, The Mandalorian and Grogu and now Starfighter and that’s just the projects we know about right now.

Is Star Wars back? Fingers crossed.

Let me know your thoughts, you Nerdy beauties.

Star Wars: Starfighter will release on May 28th 2027, almost 50 years to the day since Star Wars first hit our screens on May 25th 1977

Shawn Levy and Ryan Gosling talk Starfighter:

 

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Marc

Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….