Change is in motion at Lucasfilm, and it’s coming from the top. Kathleen Kennedy is steering Star Wars away from the Skywalker family tree toward a slate of new eras, new faces, and new ideas. As she put it, the franchise’s future won’t revolve around legacy—but around discovery.
The big pivot begins with The Mandalorian and Grogu arriving in theaters in 2026. But at Star Wars Celebration 2025 in Tokyo, Kennedy—joined by Dave Filoni, Shawn Levy, and Ryan Gosling—revealed an even bigger move: Star Wars: Starfighter, officially dated for May 28, 2027.
Starfighter signals a major shift, intentionally designed as a standalone feature set far outside the Skywalker timeline. Levy’s film is not meant to extend any existing trilogy or arc. Instead, it takes place during an era the audience has never seen, with no required connections to previous characters.
The cast pushes that concept forward. Ryan Gosling leads the lineup alongside Aaron Pierre, Simon Bird, Jamael Westman, Daniel Ings, and first-time actor Flynn Gray. Mia Goth and Matt Smith take on villain roles, setting a darker tone, while Amy Adams has sparked early theories about her character’s involvement with the Force—or perhaps the start of a new Jedi mythos.
Speculation has already taken off that the movie could grow into something bigger, with whispers suggesting the story may feature a Force-sensitive child protected by their mother—possibly Adams’s character—who could influence future Star Wars films. Some even believe the storyline might connect with Daisy Ridley’s Rey Skywalker in the developing New Jedi Order project. Lucasfilm has not weighed in, but the crossover theories have quickly taken hold.
That trajectory may have shifted. Speaking with On Film… With Kevin McCarthy, Shawn Levy confirmed that the movie’s third act has gone through major changes.
“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. And I’m literally right now shooting that section of the movie,” he said. “Everyday 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.”
Levy emphasized that Starfighter is still conceived as a standalone story. What drew him in, he explained, was the creative freedom offered to shape a Star Wars movie through his own vision. He described the process as a dream fulfilled, with Kennedy encouraging originality above all else—no required links to previous films, just a mandate to build something fresh from the ground up.
That approach could become a pivotal moment for the franchise. With a new era, unfamiliar timeline, and a cast untied to legacy characters, Starfighter might pave the way for a fresh evolution of Star Wars cinema—or remain a unique experiment. Either way, the message is clear: the future is heading into unknown space.
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