This is a post about an upcoming Star Wars movie and, ordinarily, that checks two of Sarah’s boxes: movies, in general, and Star Wars specifically. Sarah, however, is busy, so I get to do the Star Wars business but it’s not really Star Wars business here, it’s Ryan Gosling business. 

 

The big, big, big movie news that broke yesterday, an exclusive from The Hollywood Reporter, is that Ryan is in talks to star in an upcoming Star Wars film to be directed by Shawn Levy who’s just coming off the summer success of Deadpool & Wolverine. Is he about to work with the other Canadian Ryan? 

 

This project has been in development since at least 2022, and there hadn’t been that much movement on it – in fact, according to THR, Shawn seems to have been further along on another movie on his schedule until the possibility of casting Ryan Gosling came up. Now, if the deal goes through, it sounds like this thing is going lightspeed. Like, they’re talking about starting to shoot in the fall. 

That may have to do with Ryan’s commitments and, perhaps, part of the negotiations – for example, he’ll only do it if they can get it going this year. But also, a bigger takeaway for those processing this story: that this is how much more confidence the studio has in the project if he’s attached to it…

 

Even though, as Sarah pointed out to me over text last night, he’s not exactly a box office draw. Remember, The Fall Guy underperformed last summer – but maybe they’re attributing that to an IP issue and the combination of the Star Wars IP with Ryan G’s reputation, gravitas, etc etc, is enough for them to crank up the gears on this and gooooooooo. 

As for Ryan, if Star Wars ends up being confirmed, that’s four in a row. Four big budget, big scale movies in a row starting with Barbie, then The Fall Guy, and Project Hail Mary, which he worked on last year, directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. It’s an astronaut epic, based on another book by Andy Weir, so there are already comparisons to Ridley Scott’s The Martian starring Matt Damon. The Martian had box office appeal and was an awards contender. There are a lot of people looking forward to this one in March 2026. So he’d be coming off that film and then, presumably Star Wars. 

This is an actor who spent over a decade doing the small movies. And now, in his 40s, RG is deep in his blockbuster era.