Lucasfilm brought Star Wars: Starfighter to D23 on Saturday, and Ryan Gosling’s character officially has a name: Kade Auberon.
Director Shawn Levy and Gosling took the stage in Anaheim, where Levy presented his star with a new jacket featuring a skull and crossbones design on the back.
It’s the Rebel Alliance symbol turned upside down.
The official Star Wars account followed up with the confirmation: “Ryan Gosling is Kade Auberon.”
The Rumors Called It
The name should sound familiar. As we previously covered, leaks out of MakingStarWars named Gosling’s character as Cade months ago.
Lucasfilm’s official spelling swaps in a K, but the leak nailed it. Kade Auberon it is.
First Footage Sounds Like Top Gun In Space
The D23 crowd also got the first footage from the movie.
Per Brandon Davis’s description on X, Gosling’s Kade tells a teenager admiring his ship that it’s the fastest ever. When the kid says he has never heard of it, Kade tells him there’s a reason for that.
Davis says the footage then runs through a series of action beats with ships showing off before closing on a shot of Gosling piloting the ship, filmed from the front looking at him in the cockpit, which Davis compared to Top Gun.
The teenager is presumably Flynn Gray, and as we exclusively reported from Comic-Con, Lucasfilm is really happy with the young actor, with Gosling heavily involved in the movie in the vein of Ryan Reynolds and Deadpool.
Starfighter Has A Lot Riding On It
Starfighter is the first theatrical Star Wars since The Mandalorian and Grogu underperformed, and the early word is good.
IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond, who has been on the movie’s set, calls it “a throwback to the Harrison Ford kind of Star Wars” and told Matt Belloni to take that to the bank.
The movie is also confirmed for IMAX and anchors Lucasfilm’s big plans for the Star Wars 50th anniversary, opening just days after the original film turns 50.
Release Info
Star Wars: Starfighter opens in theaters and IMAX on May 28, 2027, directed by Shawn Levy from a script by Jonathan Tropper.
The cast includes Ryan Gosling, Flynn Gray, Matt Smith, Mia Goth, Aaron Pierre, Simon Bird, Jamael Westman, Daniel Ings, and Amy Adams.
At D23, Disney and Lucasfilm also released the Ahsoka Season 2 trailer, announced the release date, and showed off the costumes.
