Director Shawn Levy is taking the Star Wars franchise in a grounded new direction. He recently revealed that the upcoming film Star Wars: Starfighter draws direct inspiration from Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 classic The Outsiders. The film stars Ryan Gosling as Kade Auberon, a pilot operating a decommissioned Imperial vessel, alongside a younger character played by Flynn Gray.
The creative team aimed to replicate the grit and blue-collar tension found in the source material. While many Star Wars projects focus on grand galactic conflicts, Starfighter centers on marginalized characters navigating a lawless, post-Rise of Skywalker landscape. Levy emphasizes that the narrative focuses on connection and survival rather than just high-tech visual spectacle.
Set in a future that remains largely unexplored in existing lore, the film aims to capture a texture that feels real and working-class. By drawing from the social clashes between teenagers in the S. E. Hinton novel, the filmmakers hope to provide a perspective on what happens in the galaxy when the primary governing structures fail.
Star Wars: Starfighter is currently scheduled for release on May 28, 2027. Production teams are betting that this character-focused approach will offer audiences a fresh entry point into the long-running science fiction universe.