Ryan Gosling is set to lead Star Wars starfighter, the 2027 entry that pushes the franchise fully into fighter-pilot territory. Shawn Levy is directing the film, and the premise puts space fighters and dogfights at the center instead of the ground-bound scale that has defined other Recent Star Wars entries.
2027 and Shawn Levy
2027 is the year Star Wars: Starfighter is scheduled to arrive, giving Star Wars a cleaner genre reset than the franchise has tried in years. The move fits a pattern that has run through the property since 1977, when the original release drew on The Hidden Fortress and other classic samurai films, then folded in Western notes and other influences across the years.
Shawn Levy’s film is the clearest sign that the next movie-era chapter is not trying to imitate Recent Star Wars. Instead, it is leaning into a fighter-pilot framework that the franchise has touched before through The Battle of Yavin and the opening battle on Hoth, but never built into a whole film in this way.
Ryan Gosling and Flynn Gray
Ryan Gosling’s reported protagonist is a pilot charged with protecting Flynn Gray’s child character, which gives Star Wars: Starfighter a road-trip shape as much as a combat one. That combination matters because it narrows the film’s engine to movement, pursuit, and protection rather than the broader ensemble sprawl that usually comes with Star Wars movies.
The same reports and rumors point to Matt Smith and Mia Goth as possible villains, which gives the film a basic chase structure without exposing the full plot. Jonathan Tropper put the anticipation bluntly: “I’m dying for people to see it.”
Star Wars history and the fight scenes
The franchise has already tested this lane in pieces. The 2000s Star Wars: Starfighter video game series let players live inside flight missions, while Poe Dameron carried the fighter-pilot role inside the sequel trilogy. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron never made it to the big screen after Patty Jenkins tried to get it there, so Levy’s film now occupies ground that the brand has circled for years.
That makes Star Wars: Starfighter less like a routine new title and more like a correction to the movie slate. If the film stays centered on pilots, the child character, and the chase implied by the rumors, it could finally turn one of the saga’s most reliable visual modes into the main event instead of the side effect.
The plot is still being kept tightly under wraps, so the real test is whether the movie stays committed to that pilot-first structure all the way to release. For now, the franchise is promising a 2027 return that looks less like another variation on old ground and more like a straight run into the fighter-craft lane.
