Shawn Levy and Ryan Gosling unveil new film Star Wars: Starfighter

Director Shawn Levy and star Ryan Gosling have officially unveiled their new standalone movie, ‘Star Wars: Starfighter’, set for release on May 28, 2027.

The ‘Deadpool and Wolverine’ filmmaker and Hollywood actor took to the stage at the ‘Star Wars Celebration’ event in Tokyo, Japan on Friday (18.04.25) to announce the release date for the hotly anticipated flick.

The movie will be set five years after 2019’s ‘The Rise of Skywalker’, with the director revealing it’s a whole “new adventure”.

As quoted by Deadline, Levy, 56, said: “There are many rumours, some true, some not. … This is not a prequel, this is not a sequel. It’s a new adventure.”

Gosling, 44, gushed: “There is not a more perfect filmmaker for this particular story than Shawn.”

The script comes from Jonathan Tropper, who has spent the past two years working on it.

Production is due to kick off in the autumn.

The official details follow a report that Mikey Madison allegedly turned down a role in the film.

The 26-year-old ‘Anora’ actress – who beat off strong competition from Demi Moore to pick up the Best Actress award at this year’s Oscars – was offered a role in the flick but passed on the part, according to Variety.

Levy has been working on the movie with Lucasfilm since 2022.

Character and plot details remain unknown but last year, Levy said he is not planning to connect his work to any other films or TV shows in the long-running series.

Speaking on the ‘Happy Sad Confused’ podcast, he said: “I’ll say that the experience of crafting this story has forced me to think about that question. Because there’s only so many times that ‘Star Wars’ movies can revisit the same section of the timeline, and so it’s really forced me, because I don’t want to do a ‘Star Wars’ movie that is redundant to others, nor am I interested in doing one that has to serve another movie.”

The filmmaker – who has teamed up with his ‘The Adam Project’ co-writer Tropper on the project – added he was making the flick with “tone and characters” at the forefront.

He said: “I really wanted to craft something that felt organic to me, both in tone and characters, so I think that there is certainly the Force and a connection to something bigger than our individual selves.

“And the way that that can make us powerful, those themes, combined with visual delight and wish fulfilment, that’s ‘Star Wars’ to me.”