Star Wars: Starfighter is still waiting for its theatrical release, but the upcoming Disney and Lucasfilm production has already made franchise history for its spending. Filming reportedly wrapped after costs reached $226.5 million.
The film is scheduled to arrive on May 27. Its production total is already higher than the amount spent on Star Wars: The Force Awakens during the equivalent stage of production. That 2015 film was later identified as the most expensive movie ever made, before Jurassic World Dominion surpassed it in 2022.
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Could Starfighter become the most expensive film ever?
The final figure for Starfighter will depend heavily on post-production. Visual effects work often accelerates after principal photography, and a new space opera is likely to require substantial digital work for aliens, starfighter combat and expansive planetary environments.
Industrial Light & Magic is expected to handle the visual effects. The production arrives at a moment when Disney and Lucasfilm have plenty to prove after The Mandalorian and Grogu struggled at the box office. That film recorded the weakest opening weekend of any Star Wars movie and finished with $345.6 million, the lowest total for a Disney-era Star Wars film.
Those results may encourage the studio to spend more time and money refining Starfighter. A larger effects budget could help deliver the spectacle audiences expect, although it also creates a clear path for the film’s overall cost to climb beyond its current total.
Tax credits complicate the headline figures
There is an important qualification when comparing the budgets of Starfighter and The Force Awakens. Both productions filmed at Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom and benefited from the country’s Audio-Visual Expenditure Credit.
The scheme is administered by HMRC and certified by the BFI. It can return up to 25.5% of eligible spending in the UK, giving producers additional flexibility while a project is being made. Consequently, the reported production cost does not tell the entire story about the money ultimately retained by the studio.
Whether that investment translates into a stronger finished film will not be clear until the remaining visual effects and post-production work are complete. For readers interested in the hardware side of interactive entertainment, RETROCADE’s Arcade Machine Buying Guide covers the practical considerations behind choosing a cabinet.
What is Starfighter about?
Shawn Levy, who directed Deadpool & Wolverine, is directing the film. The story is set five years after Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and centres on Kade Auberon, played by Ryan Gosling. Kade is described as a cynical figure with a complicated and mysterious past.
Gosling’s co-stars include Flynn Gray, Matt Smith, Mia Goth and Amy Adams. With that cast, a post-sequel timeline and a budget already above the comparable production spending for The Force Awakens, Starfighter has become one of the most closely watched upcoming Star Wars projects.
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