Deadpool 3 director Shawn Levy says he feels "empowered" going into Star Wars
The Force may be strong with this one.
Disney and Lucasfilm keep talking about upcoming Star Wars movies and establishing tentative release dates, yet they keep being either pushed back or outright cancelled. Others, such as Guillermo del Toro's Jabba the Hutt-centric project, never really reach the pre-production stage. However, the drought of big-screen Star Wars stories might finally be over sooner rather than later, as Star Wars Celebration 2023 brought a barrage of more solid announcements regarding what the theatrical future of Star Wars looks like.
While everyone's looking at Dave Filoni's New Republic-era event movie, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy's post-Rise of Skywalker Rey-centric sequel, and James Mangold's "Dawn of the Jedi" prequel, we haven't forgotten about the long-gestating Taika Waititi movie or Shawn Levy's recently announced project. Levy is currently waiting to resume production on Marvel Studios' Deadpool 3 as soon as the SAG-AFTRA strike is resolved, but he's already thinking about his dream Star Wars gig. During an interview with Variety about his Netflix limited series All The Light We Cannot See, he also briefly discussed Stranger Things' fifth and final season as well as the aforementioned Star Wars movie that's now in early development.
When Variety's Elsa Keslassy brought up the topic of making Star Wars different, Levy said that Kathleen Kennedy told him to make a Star Wars movie that feels like "a Shawn Levy movie" and reflects his personal taste and energy. "I have felt extremely empowered. We are in early days, unfortunately, because the development process was abruptly paused [due to the WGA strike], but I feel very empowered to trust my instincts in the development of this story and movie," he added. Deadpool 3 also came up during the conversation, and he was happy to add his experience working with Marvel has been positive so far, since he and Ryan Reynolds have been able (so far) to make the movie they had envisioned.
With the Disney/Lucasfilm theatrical slate in constant flux, it's hard to get truly excited at this point about any of the promised Star Wars movies, but hopefully things will pick up soon now that at least the WGA strike has ended. The next Star Wars movie, whichever it ends up being, is currently set to release in cinemas on May 22, 2026.
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