‘Star Wars: Starfighter’ Reportedly Outspends ‘The Force Awakens’ as New Filings Reveal a Massive Price Tag

When Lucasfilm announced that Ryan Gosling would headline an original ‘Star Wars’ adventure, expectations were high. The film, directed by Shawn Levy, promised an entirely new story with new characters in a period of the timeline never explored before, set roughly five years after ‘The Rise of Skywalker’.

Production moved quickly. Filming began in the U.K. in August 2025 with a full cast that includes Flynn Gray, Matt Smith, Mia Goth, Aaron Pierre, Simon Bird, Jamael Westman, Daniel Ings and Amy Adams, and the movie is set to arrive in theaters on May 28, 2027.

Now new financial filings are shedding light on what that production cost. According to Forbes, Disney spent $226.5 million (£164.9 million) on ‘Star Wars: Starfighter‘ by the time filming finished at Pinewood Studios, a figure that beats what was spent at the same stage on ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’.

It is important to read the figure carefully. The $226.5 million is not the film’s final budget, but the amount Disney had spent on production up to a certain point, with filings showing the total before tax incentives. Post-production, visual effects and marketing costs would still have to be added to get a full picture.

The filings also show some of the details behind the spending. The largest individual expense listed was $17.6 million (£12.8 million) for staff, with an average monthly workforce of 239 people, which gives a sense of the scale of the operation.

The U.K. government’s Audio-Visual Expenditure Credit provided a refund of $51.5 million (£37.5 million) for ‘Starfighter’, which reduces Disney’s net spending to about $175 million. That is a significant offset, though it still represents a higher spend at this point in production than ‘The Force Awakens’ and ‘The Last Jedi’.

It also illustrates why British filings have become such a useful window into Hollywood budgets. Because productions filmed in the U.K. must file annual accounts, details that studios usually keep private become public.

Context matters here. ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ cost $593.7 million before tax credits and about $490 million after, which makes it one of the most expensive films ever made, and it had spent more than ‘Starfighter’ at the same point in production.

That means ‘Starfighter’ sits in an expensive bracket but remains well below the most extreme examples in the franchise. It is a reminder that the saga’s biggest blockbusters have always carried huge price tags, and that Disney is treating this new chapter as a major theatrical event.

The film is designed as a fresh starting point. Levy has said it is an all-new adventure rather than a prequel or sequel, which gives newcomers an easy way in, and Gosling is also serving as an executive producer. Kathleen Kennedy is producing with Levy from a script by Jonathan Tropper.

That approach fits what the studio needs. After years of mixed results for the franchise on the big screen, an original story with a major star and a new set of characters is a way to reset expectations without relying on legacy storylines.

With the cameras finished, the focus shifts to post-production and marketing. Fans have seen little beyond a black-and-white behind-the-scenes image of Gosling and Gray and the film’s logo, so the first official trailer is likely to be a major moment.

The release date puts the film at the end of May 2027, a traditional spot for ‘Star Wars’ blockbusters. How the spending translates into box office will be a defining question for the franchise’s theatrical future.

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