Ryan Gosling in Talks to Star in Shawn Levy’s ‘Star Wars’ Film

Shawn Levy’s Star Wars movie could be about to get some serious star power, with Ryan Gosling reportedly in talks to star in the film. Cameras could roll as soon as this fall.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Gosling’s interest in doing a Star Wars movie has pushed the project to the front of the director’s schedule. The negotiations started late in the game and are supposedly the reason why Levy is now prioritizing Star Wars over another project in development, a boyband movie starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman for Paramount.

Ryan Gosling’s interest in doing a Star Wars movie must not only have excited Shawn Levy, to the point that he is benching a reunion with his Deadpool & Wolverine stars — but also Lucasfilm. Not only would this jump ahead of schedule to become Levy’s next project, it would also become the next Star Wars movie to go into production, and therefore arrive in theatres, after The Mandalorian and Grogu.

If the talks are successful, this would represent something of a full circle moment for Ryan Gosling, who was rumored to be one of J.J. Abrams’ early choices to play Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens along with Zac Efron, before the director went with Adam Driver. It would be the first time a new Star Wars movie has cast an existing Hollywood A-lister for a starring role as a new character since Liam Neeson was cast as Qui-Gon Jinn in The Phantom Menace, though perhaps you could argue that Oscar Isaac had already reached that status before he was cast as Poe Dameron for The Force Awakens.

We still have no idea where in the Star Wars timeline this movie would take place, but The Hollywood Reporter believes that this will be a standalone project rather than the first in a series of films, and will exist outside of the Skywalker Saga continuity. Lucasfilm already has Simon Kinberg working on his own trilogy after all, but that is some time away from becoming fully realized. Rumors abounded last year about Levy’s movie possibly starring Daisy Ridley as Rey, but today’s report didn’t leave any hint of that — quite the contrary, rather.

The next theatrical dates for Star Wars are May 22, 2026 (reserved for The Mandalorian and Grogu), and December 17, 2027 (currently open).