If there’s been one recurring promise surrounding “Star Wars: Starfighter,” it’s that Shawn Levy and Ryan Gosling are trying to give audiences something genuinely new in a galaxy increasingly weighed down by decades of interconnected mythology. Levy has previously described the movie as a standalone adventure, and now screenwriter Jonathan Tropper is emphasizing just how deliberately simple they wanted the film to be.
Speaking on Deadline’s Crew Call podcast about Apple TV’s “Lucky” (read our review), Tropper explained how he landed the “Star Wars” assignment after having already made three movies with Levy.
“I was fortunate to have done three movies before with Shawn Levy. They approached Shawn and said, ‘We want you to do a ‘Star Wars’ movie, and you can pick your writer,’” Tropper said. “And I landed the gig.”
At that point, however, Levy and Tropper didn’t actually know what their “Star Wars” movie would be. What eventually emerged was “Starfighter,” which stars Gosling as cynical rogue Kade Auberon, a character confronted by his mysterious past and thrust into a dangerous galactic adventure alongside a young character played by Flynn Gray. The titular ship is a G17 Imperial Reaper—the fastest ever built—which just happens to be sitting in Kade’s garage.
But Tropper says the creative priority was to separate the film from as much established “Star Wars” mythology as possible.
“What we wanted to do was to tell a story that was free of (‘Star Wars’) mythology,” Tropper explained. “We were out ahead in the timeline, and we wanted something with as few barriers of entry as possible for new fans and viewers.”
That idea lines up directly with what Tropper discussed with The Playlist earlier this summer, when he spoke about wanting to recapture the uncomplicated adventure of encountering the original “Star Wars” before generations of lore accumulated around it. This time, speaking to Deadline, he was even more explicit about what “Starfighter” won’t require audiences to know.
“This isn’t a Skywalker saga movie … we’re not dealing with the history of the Rebellion, the First Order, the Resistance or the Empire, we’re kind of beyond all that,” Tropper said. “It’s a simpler movie.”
That simplicity may be one of the movie’s most promising attributes. Lucasfilm has spent much of the Disney era filling gaps in existing continuity, revisiting familiar characters, or connecting new stories to old ones. “Starfighter,” meanwhile, is positioned beyond those conflicts and built around new characters—a direction Levy has been emphasizing since the project was first formally unveiled at Star Wars Celebration.
Tropper also revealed that working with Gosling began affecting the screenplay itself. Rather than simply handing the actor a finished character, the writer found himself absorbing Gosling’s particular cadence and expressions as production continued.
“He would offhandedly say things; I knew that would make its way into the movie,” Tropper said of Gosling. “His voice gets in your head.”
Tropper was writing “Starfighter” while simultaneously showrunning Apple TV’s “Your Friends & Neighbors” (read our Tropper interview), often working on the screenplay at night, on weekends, and during late afternoons. But he said another unusual part of making a “Star Wars” film was discovering that ideas weren’t simply coming from the writer, director, and actors—the various crafts departments were actively contributing creatively as well.
“I never experienced this before on a movie, the departments weren’t just executing, they were actually creatively inputting,” Tropper said. “Everything has to be built on a ‘Star Wars’ movie, you’re not going to Home Depot to get tables.”
The collaboration with Levy and Gosling apparently went well enough to continue immediately. Tropper also wrote Marvel’s upcoming “Ghost Rider,” which reunites Gosling and Levy for the 2028 MCU film. Tropper suggested that his work with the pair helped open that particular door.
“I don’t know if I walked into Marvel that I’d be a slam dunk by myself,” he said.
“Starfighter” also stars Amy Adams, Matt Smith, Mia Goth, Aaron Pierre, Simon Bird, Jamael Westman, and Daniel Ings. The film is scheduled to open theatrically on May 28, 2027.
