‘Star Wars’ Is Finally Getting Its First-Ever IMAX Release, and It’s Been 50 Years in the Making

Few franchises have shaped modern moviegoing quite like ‘Star Wars’, yet somehow, in nearly five decades of theatrical dominance, the film that started it all has never actually played on IMAX screens. That gap in the franchise’s history is about to close in a big way as Lucasfilm gears up for one of its most ambitious anniversary celebrations yet.

That milestone arrives as part of a broader push tied to the franchise’s landmark 50th anniversary, with 2027 shaping up to be an unusually significant year for the galaxy far, far away. Lucasfilm has been steadily building toward this celebration for months, and the studio has now confirmed exactly how it plans to mark the occasion on the biggest screens available.

According to a new announcement, both the original 1977 ‘Star Wars’, later retitled ‘Star Wars: A New Hope’, and the upcoming ‘Star Wars: Starfighter’ will be released in IMAX 70mm film for the first time in franchise history. The original film’s restored 50th anniversary re-release hits theaters on February 19, 2027, marking the very first time the movie has ever screened in IMAX, in either digital or film format, since its original 1977 debut.

That re-release will play across a select number of IMAX 70mm film locations alongside a wider run in standard theaters for a limited engagement. Given how many times ‘Star Wars’ has already returned to theaters over the decades, securing its first-ever IMAX presentation represents a genuinely rare milestone for a film that’s already been rereleased more times than almost any other title in franchise history.

‘Star Wars: Starfighter’ will follow a few months later, arriving on May 28, 2027, timed precisely to land on the exact 50th anniversary weekend of the original film’s 1977 premiere. Unlike the classic re-release, ‘Starfighter’ was actually filmed using IMAX-certified cameras from the start, with the footage subsequently converted into IMAX 70mm film prints for release in select theaters equipped to show it.

That IMAX-native production approach places ‘Starfighter‘ alongside a growing trend of blockbusters embracing large-format filmmaking as a genuine creative choice rather than simply a marketing add-on. Directed by Shawn Levy and starring Ryan Gosling as a hotshot space pilot, the film is positioned as a high-stakes showcase for the format, with early buzz suggesting a heavy focus on sweeping aerial combat sequences tailor-made for IMAX’s expanded screen ratio.

The timing also reflects broader momentum within the IMAX 70mm space more generally, fueled largely by the massive success of Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ this year. That film has become the highest-grossing IMAX release of all time with more than $450 million globally, while its 70mm screenings alone have generated a record $78 million in worldwide box office, often selling out theaters for weeks at a time.

Both ‘Star Wars’ releases arrive as part of Lucasfilm’s larger yearlong 50th anniversary celebration, which also includes ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ hitting theaters earlier in 2026 as the franchise’s first theatrical release since 2019’s ‘The Rise of Skywalker’. Together, these announcements suggest Disney and Lucasfilm are treating 2027 as a genuine turning point for how the franchise engages with premium theatrical formats going forward.

For longtime fans who’ve spent decades watching ‘Star Wars’ return to theaters in countless different cuts and formats, finally seeing the original film unfold across an IMAX screen represents something genuinely new after fifty years.

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