According to hints from director Shawn Levy, his upcoming Star Wars: Starfighter will be unlike anything fans have seen before. Levy is clear that the “do something new” mandate isn’t something he demanded before coming on board, but is an instruction coming from Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy to avoid legacy Star Wars characters.
Levy told Vanity Fair he had been hoping to make a Star Wars movie since Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012. While waiting for a call back, he turned his efforts towards other projects like Free Guy, Stranger Things, and Deadpool & Wolverine.
Shawn Levy shared how Kathleen Kennedy influenced his approach to STAR WARS: STARFIGHTER:
“[I said] ‘What’s it a prequel to? What’s it a sequel to?’ And [she said], ‘Whatever one you want. Make it feel like your movies feel.’ It was just this incredibly empowering opportunity.” pic.twitter.com/KbUy4DhNdr
— Star Wars – The Direct (@StarWars_Direct) November 25, 2025
In August 2022, Levy finally received the long-awaited phone call to adventure.
“She [Kennedy] said, ‘I want you to do a ‘Star Wars’ movie.’ I asked the obvious question: ‘Which one? What’s it a prequel to? What’s it a sequel to?'” he said. “And the immediate answer was, ‘Whatever one you want. Make it feel like your movies feel.’ It was just this incredibly empowering opportunity.”
If that sounds eerily familiar, there’s a reason for that.
Free Guys
During promotion for The Acolyte, Kathleen Kennedy told The New York Times that after reading an early draft of the script in 2019, she had a message for showrunner Leslye Headland: “You’ve written a great Star Wars show. Now go write a Leslye Headland show.” The end result was one of the biggest disasters in streaming history.
Kennedy’s similar instruction to Levy just a few years later to make whatever Star Wars he wanted as long as it felt like one of his movies, takes on a different light in that context. However, Levy has proven himself in ways that Headland had not. Despite recent revelations on the astronomical spending on Deadpool & Wolverine, the movie was very popular with fans.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – MAY 23: (L-R) Leslye Headland, Dave Filoni, Chief Creative Officer, Lucasfilm and Kathleen Kennedy, President, Lucasfilm attend the launch event for Lucasfilm’s new Star Wars series The Acolyte at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California on May 23, 2024. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
Still, effectively handing Levy the keys to the Star Wars franchise shows a tremendous amount of trust on Kennedy’s part. She didn’t simply give him permission to choose his own Star Wars adventure, placing his movie in any era he wished, but actively encouraged him to carve out his own path with new characters.
It’s confirmed that Starfighter will take place five years after The Rise of Skywalker, lending itself to the possibility of sequel characters appearing. However, Kennedy herself seems to have discouraged that.
No One We’ve Seen Before
During an interview on a podcast for The Playlist, Levy suggested that Kathleen Kennedy has encouraged him to steer clear of the familiar legacy Star Wars characters.
“Every time I’ve asked, ‘Should I use this character that was maybe in that movie?’ Every time it’s, ‘You know what? People have seen that. Do something new,'” he said.
Somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea#Starfighter pic.twitter.com/2RnSZONWrt
— Shawn Levy (@ShawnLevyDirect) September 17, 2025
A fair question to ask is, do fans want all new characters? Ryan Gosling will star in Starfighter alongside Matt Smith, Mia Goth, Aaron Pierre, Amy Adams and other actors of note. A fan theory that Amy Adams might be playing Mara Jade, an important character in the Star Wars lore, sparked a degree of excitement (or dread) in the fandom. A rumor that Daisy Ridley might reprise her role as Rey was also a source of some anxiety.
Daisy Ridley as Rey in Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017), Lucasfilm
The “do something new” mandate seems to pour cold water on the idea that either Mara Jade or Rey will appear in Starfighter. Whether this signals that Kennedy wants to move on from the poorly received sequels, or that she’s rejecting everything beloved about Star Wars aside from the name remains to be seen.
Fans will find out May 28, 2027, when Star Wars: Starfighter makes its theatrical debut.
How do you feel about the “all new” mandate by Kathleen Kennedy that avoids legacy Star Wars characters? Let us know in the comments!
