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Star Wars: Starfighter is officially under a year away, which means we don't have long to wait for another entry in the saga's big screen canon.
With The Mandalorian and Grogu in theaters now, Star Wars is officially back in its theatrical era. Deadpool and Wolverine director Shawn Levy and star Ryan Gosling are stepping into the limelight for this next film, which was officially announced at Star Wars Celebration 2025 after plenty of reports that it was happening.
The movie is set to take us past The Rise of Skywalker for the first time on screen (an upcoming novel will be the first Star Wars project that takes place after Episode 9). Below, we've rounded up everything there is to know about Star Wars: Starfighter, from the release date to the cast and what's out there about the plot. So, buckle your seatbelt and get ready to jump to lightspeed...
Star Wars: Starfighter release date
Starfighter will be released on May 28, 2027, as announced at Star Wars Celebration 2025. That makes it the next Star Wars movie after The Mandalorian & Grogu, and the second Star Wars film to be released after The Rise of Skywalker wrapped up the Skywalker Saga back in 2019.
Is there a Star Wars: Starfighter trailer?
At the moment, it's too early for a Starfighter trailer, but one is expected soon. Since we're around a year out from the film releasing, it would make a lot of sense to get one any day now.
Whenever a trailer does arrive, it's likely to debut at a large event like D23, SDCC, or even the Super Bowl. The next Star Wars Celebration is in April 2027, a month before the film is due to be released, so we can expect to hear more about it then, too.
What we do have, though, is some pictures from the set, which you can see below. In the first, which was also the movie's first look, Ryan Gosling and Flynn Gray pose with a speeder of some kind. In the second, we see both actors in costume, this time at sea. So, they're not giving much away just yet.
Star Wars: Starfighter cast
So far, Starfighter has multiple confirmed cast members. These are:
- Ryan Gosling
- Mia Goth
- Matt Smith
- Flynn Gray
- Aaron Pierre
- Simon Bird
- Jamael Westman
- Daniel Ings
- Amy Adams
Nothing is known about their roles just yet, but we can expect Mia Goth to play a villain, while Smith is also reportedly playing "the next great villain" in Star Wars.
Star Wars: Starfighter plot
The Starfighter plot is so far shrouded in mystery, but we do know a bit about the new movie. For one thing, it will take place after The Rise of Skywalker, with StarWars.com confirming the movie is set "approximately five years" later. In August, the site added that Starfighter is "an all-new standalone adventure" and is "an entirely original story set in a period of time never before explored in Star Wars."
That tracks with something Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy had previously revealed about the movie. "It's all post-[the first] nine. Shawn's is a standalone Star Wars story that'll take place post-nine, maybe five or six years out," she told Deadline.
"And Mandalorian really stands on its own because there, we're dealing with a whole other era in the New Republic. We have other development going on in that space as well. So that's the space that we’re pretty much focused on right at the moment, because obviously, with Mandalorian, we have a pretty good sense of where that's going. And with this, it's all pretty much new characters. We may bring some of the characters back from the sequel saga, but pretty much new characters."
Writer Jonathan Tropper has made it very clear we won't see any familiar faces, too, telling Screen Rant: "Essentially, I think it's known that we have no legacy characters. You're not going to see any of the characters you've seen in the other movies."
At Star Wars Celebration 2025, director Shawn Levy also said the movie "features a collection of all-new characters." And, judging by the title – and the fact that Levy and star Ryan Gosling stood in front of an X-wing on stage at the Celebration showcase – the film will have something to do with space flight.
"It's probably framed my idea of what a movie even was," Gosling said at Star Wars Celebration. "All of that aside, I think the reality is that this script is just so good. It has such a good 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."
Intriguingly, Steven Spielberg has visited the set, and Tom Cruise even shot part of the movie, and not just any part, either, but a lightsaber duel.
"It’s really intense, but I love it. I’m being pushed in a way that I've never been pushed before," Mia Goth, to be playing a villain in the film, has told Elle. "This is a completely separate film, not a prequel. It's its own thing, with new characters. And it's a great script, a really great script."
Another thing we know for sure, though, is that the third act had to change. "On Starfighter it was – we had a whole different idea for something in the third act and then things didn't align and I was forced to come up with a new idea," Levy told the podcast On Film... With Kevin McCarthy. "And I'm literally right now shooting that section of the movie. And every day I'm grateful that the way I was supposed to do it didn't work out, because the new idea that it forced me to explore is so much better than the original idea would have been."
On the same podcast, Levy also revealed which Star Wars film is Starfighter's biggest inspiration.
"Let me tell you something. People – I've not said this out loud because everyone's like 'Which Star Wars movie is Starfighter the most like? Which is the most inspired by?' If I'm being honest, I know the cool answer would be Empire, and sort of the inarguable answer would be A New Hope, but it's kinda Jedi," Levy explained, referring to Return of the Jedi.
"It's Jedi because of the combination of theme, levity, adventure, heart, spectacle. Somehow that movie just got it right for me," he added. "And I saw that movie so many times in a theater, more times in a theater than New Hope and Empire, and it stuck with me."
And that's a wrap on Star Wars: Starfighter. For even more, check out our guide to all the upcoming Star Wars movies and shows for everything else the galaxy far, far away has in store for us.
