I don’t know if this is a good or bad thing, but Shawn Levy has revealed that his upcoming “Star Wars: Starfighter” is undergoing a major change during production.
Speaking on the On Film… With Kevin McCarthy podcast, Levy explained that the team scrapped the film’s original third-act plan and he was “forced” to write a new ending:
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. 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.
Levy says that making a Star Wars film is an entirely different experience from any of the other major franchises he’s worked on.
You could argue that’s true of Marvel, that’s true of other franchises, but nothing is as religious an allegiance as Star Wars. And so, the need, the pressure, self-inflicted mostly, to get it right – that’s intense.”
Why in the world would Levy even admit this? And to use the word “forced”? Now there are countless speculative think pieces questioning what’s going on with ‘Starfighter.’ It boggles the mind that he’d openly say he was “forced” to do rewrites and reshoots on a film that’s still in production.
Set about five years after ‘The Rise of Skywalker,’ ‘Starfighter’ is described as a standalone tale focused on new characters within the Star Wars universe. Alongside ‘Mandalorian & Grogu,’ it marks the first Star Wars feature since 2019 and comes at a moment when the franchise desperately needs to feel relevant again in theaters.
Matt Smith, Mia Goth, Aaron Pierre, Simon Bird, Jamael Westman, Daniel Ings, and Amy Adams also appear in the film, which Levy is directing from a script by Jonathan Tropper. With Claudio Miranda (”Life of Pi,” “Top Gun: Maverick”) serving as cinematographer, I’m at least optimistic about the film’s visual quality. My real concern is Levy himself—he has the potential to turn this into a “Waterworld in space.”
There hasn’t been a ‘Star Wars’ movie released since 2019’s ‘Rise of the Skywalker.’ That will change next year when Jon Favreau’s ‘Mandalorian & Grogu’ hits theaters in May 2026. Over the past six years, Lucasfilm has become a revolving door of Star Wars announcements — many of which never made it past the press release stage. Projects came and went, often quietly shelved, painting a picture of a studio in disarray.
Lucasfilm has set a May 28, 2027 release for ‘Starfighter.’