Shawn Levy, the director of Deadpool & Wolverine and a huge part of Netflix’s Stranger Things, is now committed to one of his most challenging projects ever. He will now have his shot at making a Star Wars movie for Lucasfilm. Titled Star Wars: Starfighter, the project stars Ryan Gosling and is set for release in May 2027, on the 50th anniversary of the original film’s release. Levy has bravely accepted the gig of presenting a new spin on the cherished franchise, but don’t expect him to deliver something that just repeats or tags onto the classic films. The director has revealed the best thing about Star Wars: Starfighter, and it’s that it won’t be a sequel or a prequel, but instead, it will be a whole new thing.
While promoting the fifth and final season of Netflix’s Stranger Things, Levy spoke to Collider about his Star Wars project. While he didn’t offer plot details (don’t expect those to surface anytime soon), the director was kind enough to reveal where his film takes place in the Star Wars universe:
“Well, for one thing, it is different in that it is an all-new non-sequel, non-prequel adventure. It’s new characters, it’s a new timeline. It inherits legacy themes, but it’s really trying to give Star Wars [fans] — and just movie audiences — something fresh, something new. And with a spirit of play and big-hearted adventure with moments of real levity that, frankly, A New Hope had in a revolutionary way.
“We’re really trying to sort of take that tone as a North Star every day. My crew, my DP, Claudio Miranda, Gosling is my kind of central collaborator in the lead role. It’s certainly been a dream come true. My 10-year-old self is on set with me every day. In fact, he’s going to catch a flight tonight to go back to the set and keep shooting on Monday. But it’s a huge invigorating opportunity because Lucasfilm has been so encouraging of me doing something new. There’s no pressure to be derivative or limited by an obligation to what came before. There’s just a love of what came before.”
Does “New” Apply in ‘Star Wars’?
Every time a filmmaker has tried to do something new with the beloved sci-fi adventure franchise, there has been resistance from loyal fans. Levy also faces that challenge with Starfighter, and though the idea of new characters in a new timeline sounds exciting, the director will have to make something appealing to modern audiences while paying homage to everything that came before. That “love of what came before” that he resoundingly mentions, is still the driving force behind the franchise.
The attempts to revitalize the franchise with several new TV shows have received mixed results. The Mandalorian works because it does capture the spirit of the original movies, but others, like The Acolyte had ideas that didn’t fully connect with fans. Andor is a great reference, as the show didn’t have much Star Wars lore in it, and instead presented a spin on the original tone. Perhaps the secret lies in that. In the radical approach to new and different tones that are able to work within the universe of Star Wars. If Levy’s movie can capture that, then he could be onto a winner.