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  1. Entertainment
  2. Movies
  3. Sci-Fi Movies
  4. Star Wars Movies
  5. Star Wars: Starfighter

Deadpool and Wolverine director Shawn Levy compares his Star Wars movie to Stranger Things

News
By Molly Edwards published 7 January 2026

Shawn Levy wants his Star Wars movie to be like Stranger Things in one key way

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Shawn Levy
(Image credit: Tommaso Boddi/Getty Image)
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Deadpool and Wolverine director Shawn Levy is blasting off to a galaxy far, far away – and he's compared his Star Wars: Starfighter movie to Stranger Things, another sci-fi project to which he has lent his directing talents.

"If I've learned anything on Stranger Things, it's that you can get intimidated by the scale of franchise expectation," Levy told The Hollywood Reporter. "But you will lose your way if that's your focus. I've learned the need to stay rooted in character, and themes and relationships on screen. Yes, there's spectacle and scale, just like Stranger Things. And of course, Star Wars and Starfighter has spectacle and scale and adventure at a level I've never done in my whole career.

"But like Stranger Things, it's also very much anchored in a human-scale character-sized story," he continued. "I think that if I can balance the epic and the intimate the way the Duffers have with Stranger Things, I'll make a movie and an original and new Star Wars adventure that can be really satisfying to fans and audiences."

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Starfighter stars Ryan Gosling in the leading role, with the rest of the cast including Matt Smith, Mia Goth, Amy Adams, Adam Pierre, and Flynn Gray.

"It is different in that it is an all-new non-sequel, non-prequel adventure," Levy has said of the movie before. "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."

As for Stranger Things, the long-running Netflix show recently came to an end with the Stranger Things season 5 finale, which you can read more about in our Stranger Things season 5 finale ending explained or Stranger Things season 5 finale review.

For more on the galaxy far, far away, see our guide to all the upcoming Star Wars movies and shows.

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TOPICS
Disney Lucasfilm
Molly Edwards
Molly Edwards
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Senior Entertainment Writer

I'm a Senior Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering all things film and TV for the site's Total Film section. I previously worked on the Disney magazines team at Immediate Media, and also wrote on the CBeebies, MEGA!, and Star Wars Galaxy titles after graduating with a BA in English.

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