Lucasfilm’s current slate of upcoming Star Wars movies looks a bit more like a vision board than a schedule. It’s a list of goals, not a solid plan, and fans have been burned by cancellations too many times before to expect all of those goals to be achieved. But after a few years of movies falling apart left and right, at least a few seem to finally be solidifying, starting with The Mandalorian spinoff movie The Mandalorian and Grogu, which has already wrapped filming.
Now, the most recently announced Star Wars movie is heading toward production, and it’s reportedly circling one of the biggest actors of the decade as it does.
Ryan Gosling may be venturing into a galaxy far, far away.
Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic/Getty Images
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Barbie and Blade Runner 2049 star Ryan Gosling is in final negotiations to star in Shawn Levy’s upcoming Star Wars movie. Levy has been attached to a Star Wars movie since 2022, before the smash success of the director’s Deadpool and Wolverine, but the project picked up steam in July 2024 when frequent Levy collaborator Jonathan Tropper was announced as writer.
Casting Ryan Gosling is actually a big change for the franchise. While Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher are all iconic names now, they were all unknowns when they were cast in the original trilogy. Even the prequel and sequel trilogies, with their bigger budgets, still went with a lot of obscure actors; when Ewan McGregor was cast as Obi-Wan Kenobi in The Phantom Menace, for example, he was only really known for Trainspotting.
Gosling, on the other hand, is very well known. He’s been nominated for three Oscars, starred in a major sci-fi franchise film, and has been the face of not one but two huge memes over a decade. If that’s not a tried-and-true movie star, we don’t know what is.
Gosling already proved his sci-fi chops in Blade Runner 2049.
Warner Bros.
This casting signals Levy’s Star Wars movie will be the next one in production, and the timing seems perfect for this to be the movie that celebrates Star Wars’ 50th anniversary in 2027. An occasion like that definitely warrants a high-profile movie with a high-profile star, but don’t expect it to launch yet another trilogy: according to THR’s report, it will be a standalone.
Levy knows how to make a blockbuster, as he’s repeatedly proven with each successive Deadpool chapter, and Gosling certainly knows how to act. We can only hope that, together, they give the franchise the shot in the arm it so desperately needs.
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