Despite reports that Shawn Levy's Star Wars: Starfighter will "have a significantly smaller budget" than the previous Disney-era films, it seems Disney and Lucasfilm spent a lot more on the next instalment in the franchise than we had been led to believe.
According to Forbes, Starfighter had cost the studio $226.5 million by the time filming had wrapped at Pinewood Studios, surpassing the sum spent during the same period on Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which was believed to be the most expensive movie ever made until 2022's Jurassic World Dominion.
"The filings show that the company spent a massive $226.5 million (£164.9 million) with one of the biggest single costs shown in the filings being the $17.6 million (£12.8 million) paid to the staff who came to a monthly average of 239 people. In contrast, Foodles Production (UK) – the FPC behind The Force Awakens – booked costs of £147.6 million from the outset to 12 days after filming finished. Likewise, Space Bear Industries (UK) – the FPC which made Disney’s second Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi, spent £162.3 million from when it was incorporated to three weeks after filming finished."
Set approximately five years after the events of The Rise of Skywalker, Starfighter stars Ryan Gosling as a cynical rogue from the less privileged side of the galaxy who encounters a teenager (Flynn Gray) who may or may not be Force-sensitive.
"With no governing force keeping order in the galaxy, the two are able to take a decommissioned enemy starfighter and embark on an adventure."
The impressive ensemble will also feature Matt Smith (Morbius), Mia Goth (Frankenstein), Aaron Pierre (Lanterns), Simon Bird (The Inbetweeners), Jamael Westman (Hedda), Daniel Ings (Lovesick), and Amy Adams (Man of Steel).
"I feel a profound sense of excitement and honor as we begin production on Star Wars: Starfighter," Levy said in a press release when production began. "From the day Kathy Kennedy called me up, inviting me to develop an original adventure in this incredible Star Wars galaxy, this experience has been a dream come true, creatively and personally."
He added, "Star Wars shaped my sense of what story can do, how characters and cinematic moments can live with us forever. To join this storytelling galaxy with such brilliant collaborators onscreen and off, is the thrill of a lifetime.
Following the massive success of Deadpool and Wolverine, Levy is reportedly viewed by Disney as "a must-have, must-keep" director, so there's a good chance he had a significant amount of creative control over the movie.
"I'll say that the experience of crafting this story has forced me to think about that question," Levy said last year when asked what he hopes to bring to the table with his trip to the Galaxy Far, Far Away. "Because there's only so many times that Star Wars movies can revisit the same section of the timeline, and so it's really forced me - because I don't want to do a Star Wars movie that is redundant to others, nor am I interested in doing one that has to serve another movie."
"I really wanted to craft something that felt organic to me, both in tone and characters, so I think that there is certainly the Force and a connection to something bigger than our individual selves. And the way that that can make us powerful, those themes, combined with visual delight and wish fulfilment, that's Star Wars to me."