Kathleen Kennedy has addressed Ryan Gosling’s casting in Shawn Levy’s upcoming Star Wars movie, as well as just how long the film has (surprisingly) been in development. Star Wars Celebration 2025 has officially begun in Japan, and ScreenRant is in attendance to get all the exciting details and news coming from the galaxy far, far away. This includes exclusive interviews with none other than Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy.

Following Star Wars Celebration’s first panel covering The Mandalorian & Grogu and Star Wars: Starfighter, ScreenRant got the chance to sit with Kathleen Kennedy, who revealed some key insights about Ryan Gosling’s new Star Wars casting and just how long Starfighter has been in development:

“Shawn started talking about Ryan right from the beginning. When he was developing this, he had Ryan in mind.

I’ve known Shawn a long time and I think that he is one of the perfect directors for Star Wars. He has that wonderful sense of humor, fun, loves Star Wars. He’s been dying to do this forever.

In fact, I talked to him as he mentioned in 2022, but I talked to him even before that because he had gotten into Stranger Things and suddenly with that success, it kind of took him off the market for a while. So he’s been thinking about this story for quite some time and wanting to do something in the Star Wars universe, I think his whole life.”

According to Kennedy, who confirmed the idea for this film has been in the works since 2022 and even earlier, it’s very exciting that Shawn Levy’s Star Wars: Starfighter is finally becoming a reality with a release date in 2027.

Ryan Gosling Is The Biggest Actor Casting In Star Wars History

A Ton Of Starpower

Typically, prominent leading actors who get cast in Star Wars movies don’t come into the galaxy far, far away with a lot of preexisting star power. Of course, there are a handful of notable exceptions, like Liam Neeson’s Qui-Gon Jinn or Samuel L. Jackson’s Mace Windu. Still, it’s a pretty rare thing to have a main character in a brand-new Star Wars movie be one of the most popular Hollywood actors of all time.

This is what makes Ryan Gosling’s casting in Star Wars: Starfighter so surprising and exciting. Likewise, it’s very cool to hear that Shawn Levy had been envisioning Gosling from the very beginning of the movie’s development. While it wasn’t revealed who Gosling will specifically be playing in Starfighter, one can imagine, based purely on the movie’s тιтle alone, that Gosling will be playing some sort of pilot in the post-sequel trilogy era of the Star Wars timeline.

Our Take On Shawn Levy’s Upcoming Star Wars Movie

Are We Finally Going To Get Our X-Wing Movie?

The reveal of the Starfighter тιтle should be incredibly exciting for Star Wars fans. After all, recent years have seen the cancellation of delays/cancellations of both Rogue Squadron and Rangers of the New Republic, two projects which would have been focused on heroic pilots and their starfighters in the galaxy far, far away. Now, it looks as though Levy and Gosling are finally going to make that dream a reality in 2027.

Star Wars: Starfighter releases in theaters on May 28th, 2027.

Star Wars

Created by

George Lucas

First Film

Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope

Cast

Mark Hamill, James Earl Jones, David Prowse, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Ian McDiarmid, Ewan McGregor, Rosario Dawson, Lars Mikkelsen, Rupert Friend, Moses Ingram, Frank Oz, Pedro Pascal

TV Show(s)

The Mandalorian, Andor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka, The Acolyte, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, Lando, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, Star Wars: The Bad Batch, Star Wars: Resistance, Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures, Star Wars: Visions

Character(s)

Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Rey Skywalker, Emperor Palpatine / Darth Sidious, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka Tano, Grand Admiral Thrawn, Grand Inquisitor, Reva (The Third Sister), The Fifth Brother, The Seventh Sister, The Eighth Brother, Yoda, Din Djarin, Grogu, Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, Leia Organa, Ben Solo/Kylo Ren

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