Ryan Gosling Could Star in Shawn Levy’s Star Wars Movie

The future of Star Wars movies is always in an uncertain level of motion, but one of the most mysterious projects among the many mysterious projects Lucasfilm has cooking at the moment might have just taken a major step forward.

The Hollywood Reporter reports—and io9 has confirmed—that Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy’s mystery Star Wars film is currently in negotiations with Ryan Gosling for a major starring role. Little else is known about Levy’s project, which was first unveiled in 2022—one of just a handful of recently announced Star Wars theatrical projects that has managed to make it through the last few years of scrapping and reshuffling largely unscathed so far.

The film—which Levy last gave an update on in 2023, saying that plans for a script had been waylaid by the then-current Hollywood strikes—has not been given any specific setting within the Star Wars timeline, but the Hollywood Reporter further added that the film is indeed a standalone entity, and unconnected to the broad narrative of the main series of “Skywalker Saga” films, which would fit into what we’ve heard about Lucasfilm’s most recent movie slate plans, aligning around a “new saga” of three films currently being planned by producer and writer Simon Kinberg.

THR further adds that should Gosling sign on to appear in the film, Lucasfilm’s planned slate after release of the first Star Wars theatrical project since 2019, next year’s The Mandalorian & Grogu, could shift once more. Levy had previously planned on directing other projects before focusing on the galaxy far, far away, including an upcoming boy band film at Paramount that would reunite him with his Deadpool & Wolverine colleagues Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman. However, should talks with Gosling go well, the Star Wars project will become Levy’s next film—and the next Star Wars film in Lucasfilm’s vast slate to actually enter production, with production potentially starting this coming fall.

We’ll bring you more on Levy’s Star Wars movie, and other future Lucasfilm developments, as and when we learn them.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.