Hugh Jackman, Ryan Reynolds, Steve Martin, Tina Fey, Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson. These are among the stars who have worked multiple times with director Shawn Levy, a clear testament to how his sets must be at least smoothly professional – and likely pretty fun, too. So while it might have initially been surprising when an even higher-caliber Ryan – Gosling, the three-time Oscar nominee – decided to take a lead role in Levy’s upcoming Star Wars project, recently revealed to be subtitled Starfighter, it also follows Levy’s career-long pattern of attracting A-list talent. Given all that, what happened – or didn’t happen – next was the real shocker.
Supposedly, a whole litany of buzzy names have turned down the chance to appear in the summer 2027 release Starfighter. Now, the sourcing on the full circulated list is a little sketchy. It may not be true that Mikey Madison, Greta Lee, Jesse Plemons, Sarah Snook, and Jodie Comer (who has already worked with Levy on Free Guy) have all said no, and they may not have been offered the roles described in a viral tweet. But at minimum, the story about recent Oscar winner Madison passing appears to be true, and her shrugging off one the biggest franchises around this early in her career does make the others’ non-participation seem plausible.
No one should really be worried about a Star Wars movie starring Ryan Gosling; it doesn’t exactly need someone from Succession to boost its profile. At the same time, it may represent a perception shift not just with the Star Wars brand but with the endless franchising of actors in general. While the “saga” movies in the Star Wars series (which is to say, most of them, the one with “episode” in the titles) are more likely to cast young, lesser-known actors in major roles, the post-Disney opening up of the franchise has meant way more roles in general, which is how you get familiar faces like Diego Luna, Woody Harrelson, Thandiwe Newton, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen, Stellan Skarsgård, Jude Law, and Timothy Olyphant on spinoffs and side stories like Solo, Rogue One, Andor, The Mandalorian, and so on.
None of those names are a bigger draw than the Star Wars logo, so their inclusion is twofold: Perceived value-added prestige in a world where there’s not just a one-stop Star Wars movie every three to ten years; and an easy profile boost for actors appearing in a project that will automatically be seen by a lot of people.
It’s heartening, then, to see any actors decide that making a Shawn Levy movie probably isn’t worth whatever prestige they’ll bring to it.
Nothing against Levy as a person – or even as a director of light comedies, although Date Night (funny and brisk!) seems like the exception while his Night at the Museum trilogy (great cast, and, well, kids seem to like it) is more like the rule. But he’s been on an absolute tear of making quasi-Spielbergian “original” movies like The Adam Project or Free Guy, movies that some people have described as “smooth and featureless as a FunkoPop,” giving original screenplays a bad name. His great recent triumph was making the worst of the three Deadpool movies while graceless resurrecting Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, to the tune of a billion-plus worldwide.
There are plenty of reasons to argue that Levy fits a devalued Star Wars brand perfectly. For six years, it’s been primarily a TV proposition, as various movies have gone in and out of development (with the one that actually made it into production being… a continuation of a TV show). Lucasfilm still seems a little freaked out by their own decision to hire an actual filmmaker for The Last Jedi. Even back in the original-trilogy days, George Lucas delegated the actual directing of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi to other people. Is Star Wars, currently ruled by the likes of Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, really too good for Shawn Levy?
Well, maybe! Because honestly, what’s actually made to the screens lately from Lucasfilm has been pretty strong. Everyone loves Andor, which recently began its second and final season. The Acolyte and Skeleton Crew were not as universally acclaimed, but they’re arguably the Lucasfilm projects least dependent on legacy characters, and least interested in sucking up to aging Gen-Xers. Actors signing up for any of those shows were potentially joining something acclaimed, or something new.
Technically, Star Wars: Starfighter will be new, though the fact that it feels redundant as soon as you’ve said the title out loud is not a great sign. But Levy seems constitutionally incapable of making something that really feels original. He might have been a good fit to handle a few episodes of Skeleton Crew, which to some extent shares the I-love-the-’80s routine with movies like Adam Project. But it seems entirely reasonable to assume that if George Lucas or J.J. Abrams weren’t able to catapult Mark Hamill and Daisy Ridley to superstardom, there’s not much career advantage in doing the Shawn Levy version. That’s not shade on Hamill or Ridley; Ridley especially seems content to let Star Wars be her geek thing and do smaller things that interest her while waiting to maybe reprise Rey in the future. (Take Hamill’s word for it; even if it doesn’t happen now, it will at some point in the next half-century.) Star Wars spots talent and often puts it to good use, but it doesn’t really make movie stars out of nothing.
And really, some resistance toward the automatic-yes might be better for Star Wars in the long run. Everyone still says yes to Marvel, nearly 20 years in, and sometimes that just results in, hey, Harrison Ford, turning up in the worst MCU movie. If actors start differentiating between doing Andor and doing The Shawn Levy Project, maybe Disney will, too.
Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn podcasting at www.sportsalcohol.com. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others.
