Shawn Levy compares Star Wars: Starfighter to A New Hope - ‘Something fresh, something new’
Director Shawn Levy has teased Star Wars: Starfighter will be "something new" for the franchise, and has said the 2027 blockbuster will feature the same "spirit of play and big-hearted adventure" as the original Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope.
Shawn Levy has promised Star Wars: Starfighter will be “something fresh” for the franchise.
The Ryan Gosling-starring sci-fi blockbuster is set to land in cinemas in 2027, and director Levy has now teased Star Wars: Starfighter will have the same “spirit of play and big-hearted adventure” as the original 1977 Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope.
Speaking with Collider, the Deadpool and Wolverine filmmaker, 57, said: “Well, for one thing, it is different in that it is an all-new non-sequel, non-prequel adventure. 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.”
Levy added his “10-year-old self is on set with [him] every day” making Star Wars: Starfighter, and emphasized that his film would not be “limited” by what had come before it in the Star Wars canon.
He said: “We're really trying to sort of take that tone as a North Star every day. My crew, my DP, Claudio Miranda, Gosling is my kind of central collaborator in the lead role. It's certainly been a dream come true.
“My 10-year-old self is on set with me every day. In fact, he's going to catch a flight tonight to go back to the set and keep shooting on Monday.
“But it's a huge invigorating opportunity because Lucasfilm has been so encouraging of me doing something new.
“There's no pressure to be derivative or limited by an obligation to what came before. There's just a love of what came before.”
The Night at the Museum director also heaped praise on his cinematographer Miranda - who had worked with Joseph Kosinski on the Tom Cruise-led Top Gun: Maverick in 2022 - calling him “a huge gift to a Star Wars movie”.
Levy gushed: “I'll give you two things real quick, beyond his artistry, which is self-evident in everything from Life of Pi to Benjamin Button.
“Claudio is - I call him the Professor because he loves the nerdy figuring out of prep. He likes to design camera platforms that don't exist. He likes to think about lenses and format in ways that are innovative.
“And so the rigor of his innovative thinking is a huge gift to a Star Wars movie that wants to break some new ground visually and be a visceral kinetic ride, which is the other thing he brings. Claudio, in both Top Gun: Maverick and F1 showed this.
“His sense of how to put people in the action in a visceral way, not just in an observational way, but a subjective and participatory way, in that cockpit, in that driver's seat.
“He does it like no one else does it, and I wanted that superpower for Starfighter.”
As well as Gosling, Star Wars: Starfighter will feature Amy Adams, Mia Goth, Aaron Pierre, Flynn Gray, Simon Bird, Jamael Westman, Daniel Ings and Matt Smith.
