It’s been an open secret for a while that Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy is preparing his own Star Wars movie. What we didn’t realize was this project will leap over most of the other Star Wars movies and land a release date near the 50th anniversary of the franchise. At Star Wars Celebration in Tokyo, Lucasfilm officially announced Levy’s film and confirmed that Barbie‘s Ryan Gosling will headline Star Wars: Starfighter.
The original Star Wars hit theaters on May 25, 1977. Starfighter will arrive 50 years and three days later on May 28, 2027. Production will begin this fall. Levy and Gosling both appeared on stage in Tokyo during the announcement. Levy also indicated that the story will be set five years after The Rise of Skywalker, but it’s not a direct sequel to that film.
“This is a standalone,” said Levy via The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s not a prequel, not sequel. It’s a new adventure. It’s set in a period of time that we haven’t seen explored yet.”
Gosling added 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.”
Levy was reportedly in contention for Avengers: Doomsday before the Russo brothers returned to helm that film and its sequel, Avengers: Secret Wars. Now, Doomsday will hit theaters just a few weeks before Starfighter. Avengers: Infinity War and Solo: A Star Wars Story were both released within weeks of each other in May 2018, and only the former was a hit.
During Celebration, Lucasfilm also confirmed that Simon Kinberg’s new trilogy remains in development alongside movies by Dave Filoni, James Mangold, Donald Glover, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, and Taika Waititi.
