Everything We Know About the Future of ‘Star Wars’ – The Latest Updates, Rumors & Spoilers

The ‘Star Wars’ franchise is undergoing one of its most dramatic reinventions in decades, and somehow it all seems to be clicking into place at once. Between a long-awaited theatrical comeback, a seismic leadership shake-up at Lucasfilm, and a packed slate of films and series stretching toward the end of the decade, the galaxy far, far away has never felt more crowded, or more full of potential.

For fans who weathered years of Disney+ shows with mixed results, the momentum feels genuinely different this time. Live-action streaming series have been put on the back burner, while animated series will fill out Disney+ to support a live-action film slate. That is a meaningful strategic pivot, and its implications are already rippling across everything Lucasfilm is building.

‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ Leads the Theatrical Return

‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ is what audiences are getting in place of ‘The Mandalorian’ season 4, as Disney pivots away from the focus on ‘Star Wars’ TV shows and back towards cinematic releases. It is a bold swing that asks Disney+ loyalists to follow Din Djarin and his green companion to the big screen, and the early buzz suggests they are more than willing to make that trip.

The film sees ‘The Mandalorian’ TV series creator Jon Favreau return to direct and produce, alongside Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and chief content officer Dave Filoni as producers.

As for the story, footage shown behind closed doors at Star Wars Celebration offered some tantalizing glimpses. The fan event showed footage of Alien actress Sigourney Weaver as someone who appears to have hired Din Djarin, and the appearance of Jeremy Allen White as Rotta the Hutt, the son of slug-like crimelord Jabba the Hutt.

‘Ahsoka’ Season 2 is also expected to debut in 2026, and Jon Favreau recently teased how the two projects connect, saying that ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ is a “ground-level experience” while ‘Ahsoka’ deals with “a higher level” and “the larger picture.” The two projects appear to be functioning as complementary chapters in the same expanding story, which is exactly the kind of connected storytelling fans have been craving.

Ryan Gosling and ‘Starfighter’ Aim to Redefine the Saga

If ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ represents a bridge from the Disney+ era, then ‘Star Wars: Starfighter’ is the franchise’s next leap into genuinely uncharted territory. The standalone movie is set roughly five years after the events of 2019’s ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’, which was the last title from the franchise to hit theaters. That makes it the first live-action ‘Star Wars’ story to move the timeline past the Sequel Trilogy entirely.

Kathleen Kennedy teased the setting in an interview with Deadline, saying it will “take place post-nine, maybe five or six years out.” Gosling himself has been effusive about the project.

Speaking at Star Wars Celebration in Tokyo, he praised the script, saying, “The reality is that this script is just so good. It has such a great story with great and original characters. It’s filled with so much heart and adventure, and there just really is not a more perfect filmmaker for this particular story than Shawn.”

Matt Smith, Mia Goth, Aaron Pierre, Simon Bird, Jamael Westman, Daniel Ings, and Amy Adams round out the cast for ‘Star Wars: Starfighter’. Production began in August 2025, and filming wrapped four months later, with Matt Smith announcing he had finished his scenes. With post-production now underway, the May 2027 release window is looking increasingly firm.

A Leadership Revolution at Lucasfilm

Perhaps the biggest ‘Star Wars’ news of the year has nothing to do with a movie or show at all. After nearly 14 years of leading Lucasfilm, President Kathleen Kennedy stepped down from her role and transitioned back to full-time producing, including the studio’s upcoming feature films ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ and ‘Star Wars: Starfighter’.

Dave Filoni has been named President and Chief Creative Officer at Lucasfilm, and Lynwen Brennan has been named Co-President.

Their task will be to find ways to keep ‘Star Wars’ fresh and relevant, as well as to deal with a fanbase that can be very vocal when it feels that a film or series is departing too drastically from the canon. For many fans, Filoni’s elevation is cause for genuine optimism, given his deep roots in the franchise’s mythology.

While Kennedy was never credited as a writer on any ‘Star Wars’ projects, Filoni has writing credits on ‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars’, ‘Star Wars Rebels’, ‘The Mandalorian’, and ‘The Book of Boba Fett’ before becoming CEO. That creative fluency is exactly what many observers believe the franchise needs right now.

The ‘New Jedi Order’ and the Road to 2028

Beyond the confirmed theatrical slate, the longer-term future of ‘Star Wars’ on the big screen is still being sorted out. The much-discussed Rey Skywalker movie has had a turbulent road to production.

The project, apparently now known as ‘New Jedi Order’, is directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and is said to take place 15 years after the events of ‘The Rise of Skywalker’, with Rey now mentoring a new crop of Jedi.

The film lost Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight as writer before bringing in George Nolfi, whose work includes ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’ and ‘Ocean’s Twelve’. The movie had been scheduled to hit theaters on December 18, 2026, but is no longer on the slate, having been replaced by a sixth installment of Ice Age. With ‘Starfighter’ now locked in for 2027, fans are hoping ‘New Jedi Order’ finds its footing in time for 2028.

Other films still in development include projects from Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, James Mangold, Taika Waititi, and a trilogy from Simon Kinberg. Whether all of those eventually make it to screens remains to be seen, but the ambition is unmistakable.

Animated ‘Star Wars’ Keeps the Disney+ Galaxy Alive

While the theatrical machine revs up, Disney+ is keeping the animated ‘Star Wars’ universe moving at a steady pace. New animated series ‘Maul: Shadow Lord’ hit Disney Plus in spring 2026, and ‘The Ninth Jedi’, a spinoff expanding one of the most popular stories from ‘Star Wars: Visions’, is set to arrive sometime in 2026 as well.

The expanded ‘Ninth Jedi’ series will allow writer and director Kenji Kamiyama to further explore the adventures of Kara and Juro. Meanwhile, the mysterious untitled project from Carlton Cuse and his son Nick Cuse still has no official details attached, with Cinemablend noting that as of mid-2026 there have been no substantial updates since its announcement in April 2025.

The sheer volume of ‘Star Wars’ content arriving across every platform is staggering, but for the first time in years it feels like there is a clear creative vision holding it together. With Filoni now at the helm, a theatrical comeback already in theaters, and a Ryan Gosling-led spectacle arriving next summer, the franchise has genuine momentum.

Whether you think the best ‘Star Wars’ is still ahead or still behind us, what Lucasfilm does next with this sprawling, beloved universe feels like a genuinely open question worth debating, so what chapter of this new era are you most excited to see unfold?