Star Wars: Starfighter director Shawn Levy has revealed the movie’s high-profile composer, and said the project would deliberately avoid “remixes” of John Williams’ classic themes for the franchise.
Starfighter, the upcoming standalone Star Wars movie starring Ryan Gosling, will be scored by Thomas Newman — the Grammy, Emmy and BAFTA Award-winning composer who has also racked up 15 Academy Award nominations.
Newman is behind numerous classic film scores, including American Beauty, Erin Brockovich and The Shawshank Redemption, as well as modern blockbusters such as Bond films Skyfall and Spectre, plus Pixar’s Finding Nemo and WALL-E.
Speaking via the On Film… with Kevin McCarthy podcast, Newman said that Starfighter would sound “classically inspired” while avoiding the classic Star Wars themes that have become synonymous with the franchise. It’s an approach that makes some sense, based on what we know already of Starfighter’s story — which sounds like it’ll be completely separate to the franchise’s Skywalker Saga.
“I was thinking about this movie and what I need the music to be, because it wants to be sort of classically inspired,” Levy said. “But no, it’s not gonna be remixes of Williams cues. It may be inspired by some of that, but I knew that I needed a big-hearted movie score from a composer who, like John Williams, doesn’t shy away from themes.
“So, I called up Tom Newman… and I said, ‘Hey, it’s Shawn Levy. Would you ever consider—?’ And he said, ‘Send me the script, and describe your vision.’ And I did both those things, and it was yes. And I’m so stoked… I’m so excited about it.”
Set in a new era of Star Wars storytelling, five years after the events of Episode 9: Rise of Skywalker, Starfighter instead focuses on a new character played by Ryan Gosling and his teenage nephew, who will be portrayed by young actor Flynn Gray. Former Doctor Who Matt Smith and Frankenstein’s Mia Goth play the movie’s villains, while The Inbetweeners actor Simon Bird will also star.
Filming began in August, and since then we’ve glimpsed a couple of photos from the movie’s set. First, Levy released an image of Gosling and Gray sitting on a vehicle that looks a bit like a landspeeder, which fans of 1977’s Star Wars: A New Hope will know well. The following month, we then got to see the duo now floating on some kind of sci-fi raft.
“This is a standalone. It’s not a prequel, not a sequel,” Levy previously said at Star Wars Celebration 2025 in April. “It’s a new adventure. It’s set in a period of time that we haven’t seen explored yet.” Star Wars: Starfighter is currently due to launch on May 28, 2027.
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Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
