Ryan Gosling to lead new 'standalone' Star Wars film
Ryan Gosling, pictured, is doing a Star Wars movie. Picture: AP Photo/Chris Pizzello
Ryan Gosling has confirmed he will lead a new film, with the title of the franchise’s upcoming live-action story revealed.
The new Disney project is set to be released in two years’ time, and will be a “standalone story”, meaning the action will not follow the main storyline of the Skywalker family or sequels starring British actress Daisy Ridley.
Titled , the movie comes from director Shawn Levy, and is set for a May 7 2027 release.
At the in Tokyo, Japan, on Friday, actor Gosling said: “The reality is 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.”
Shawn Levy. Ryan Gosling. A new standalone story coming from a galaxy far, far away. Star Wars: Starfighter is coming to theaters Memorial Day 2027. pic.twitter.com/uiTLfRA0fz
— Star Wars (@starwars) April 18, 2025
As the event showed his childhood bedsheets on screen, Gosling added as “you can see from the picture, I guess I was probably dreaming about before I even saw the film.”
“And it’s probably framed my idea of what a movie even was,” he said.
The Canadian actor, who was Oscar-nominated for playing Ken in the blockbuster, is known for musical , and romance .
Levy said the new space adventure is “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”.
His previous film – starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman – was one of the highest-grossing movies of 2024, making more than one billion US dollars at the box office.
Not much is known about the plot for the new movie from the franchise, who has so far not been as successful with the live action spin-offs, aside from starring Diego Luna, compared with the main trilogies.
The next movie release is set to be , a sequel to the Disney+ series starring Pedro Pascal as a bounty hunter that ends up caring for a force-sensitive creature that resembles the green-skinned Yoda.
The fan event showed footage of actress Sigourney Weaver, as someone who appears to have hired Din Djarin (Pascal), and the appearance of Jeremy Allen White as Rotta the Hutt, the son of slug-like crimelord Jabba the Hutt, a villain from .
The film sees TV series creator Jon Favreau return to direct and produce, alongside Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and chief content officer Dave Filoni as producers.
Star Wars films by James Mangold, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Taika Waititi and a new trilogy by Simon Kinberg are in ongoing development. pic.twitter.com/Qr45RElP7u
— Star Wars (@starwars) April 18, 2025
The event also confirmed that a new trilogy of movies is in “ongoing development” from James Mangold, who was recently nominated for an Oscar for Bob Dylan biopic and directed blockbusters and , and written by film franchise writer Simon Kinberg.
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who will direct the upcoming Ridley movie which sees her return as Jedi Knight Rey after the events of 2019’s , and filmmaker Taika Waititi are also part of the project.
Ridley played Rey in 2015’s and 2017’s , which saw appearance from original characters Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia, Harrison Ford as Han Solo and Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker.
They focused on how Leia and Han’s son, Kylo Ren, had been corrupted by the dark side of the force and The First Order supreme leader Snoke as Rey saw her power grow and develop as a Jedi.
