The next Star Wars movie will hit theaters in May 2027, with Starfighter premiering just days after the franchise celebrates its 50th birthday. Starfighter, starring Ryan Gosling, will be a step toward a new era of the film series, taking place after the events of the sequel trilogy. And it will be getting the full treatment that we’re used to from Star Wars movies, it seems.
At the Lucasfilm Publishing panel at New York Comic Con, a number of tie-ins were announced. Veteran Star Wars author Delilah Dawson is writing an expanded novilization of the movie. Lucasfilm’s own Pablo Hidalgo will write the latest installment in his visual dictionary series with one on Starfighter, while the renowned Phil Szostak will write another art book detailing the making of the movie.
Additionally, several middle grade and young adult books are coming that will tie-in to the movie, while a prequel comic, written by Marc Guggenheim, will also be released, titled The Rock Pirate of Kaneen.
All of these titles gives the clear impression that there will be a whole tie-in push leading up to, and following, the release of Starfighter. This has long been the case for Star Wars, where in addition to the merchandise released leading up to the movie there are tie-in stories that give context to the characters, events, and galaxy. Rarely are there any spoilers, but these books help to generate an extra bit of excitement for Star Wars fans. All together, it helps make the movie feel like a big deal, and like it’s a part of a larger story.
But these announcements also expose a glaring lapse in the way The Mandalorian and Grogu was marketed. There were many issues with the marketing of the movie, but one of them is that it wasn’t really treated like a big event. It was treated like a big screen episode of the TV series. There weren’t tie-in books and comics leading in to the story. There was a visual dictionary, but it was about The Mandalorian series in general and very little about the movie. There was an art book eventually to be released, but to this day there has been no novelization of the film. It’s the only Star Wars movie not to receive a novelization, and the fact that they’re going right back to it with Starfighter makes it all the more glaring.
In the end, probably two main reasons contributed to the lack of tie-in material for The Mandalorian and Grogu. For one, there was originally planned to be another season of the show before Disney decided to put it on the big screen – meaning it was probably more reactionary than anything. Even more significant, however, is the fact that Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni are exceptionally secretive and would prefer fans to know nothing about anything coming into their projects (this has been long demonstrated). There was probably no tie-in push because there was nothing allowed to be known about it at all.
That’s got to change, and I’m glad that it is for Starfighter. It seems we’re going back to Star Wars movies being treated like movies, and that will be a really good thing.
