Star Wars is going to IMAX 70mm for the first time. Lucasfilm will present both Star Wars: Starfighter and the 50th anniversary re-release of the 1977 original in the format when they arrive in 2027.
The re-release lands first. George Lucas’s original film returns to theaters on February 19, 2027, which will be the first time it has played IMAX at all, in film or digital. Starfighter follows on May 28, 2027, the 50th anniversary weekend of the original release.
Why 70mm Is The Detail That Matters
Star Wars films have played IMAX screens for years, but always in the digital format. IMAX 70mm is the film presentation, and only a few dozen locations worldwide are equipped to run it. That scarcity is what makes the announcement notable rather than routine, and it is why the format has become a marketing event of its own.
The industry got a demonstration of that this summer. Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey sold out its 70mm IMAX allocation roughly a year in advance and held the entire domestic IMAX footprint for three straight weekends in July, an unusually long run that pushed other releases into the digital houses.
A Fifty Year Old Movie On The Biggest Screens
The February date gives Lucasfilm a three-month runway between the re-release and Starfighter, and it turns the anniversary into a two-stage theatrical event rather than a single weekend. The 1977 film has been re-released several times across its life, including the 1997 Special Edition that added new effects and footage, but it has never been remastered for the IMAX film format.
What Starfighter Is
Starfighter is a standalone story set roughly five years after The Rise of Skywalker, directed by Shawn Levy, starring Ryan Gosling and co-written by Levy and Jonathan Tropper. It is built around new characters rather than the Skywalker family, and Disney has been steadily seeding the cast, including Matt Smith, who has kept his role deliberately vague in interviews.
Booking the 50th anniversary weekend for a brand-new film rather than for the original is a choice worth noting. Lucasfilm is using the anniversary to launch something rather than only to celebrate what it already has, with the re-release doing the commemorative work in February.
The Wider 2027 Picture
Star Wars has not had a theatrical year like this in some time. The Mandalorian and Grogu carried the franchise back to cinemas in May, and 2027 now holds two Star Wars releases on IMAX’s largest format, three months apart, in a year that also marks a half century of the property.
Neither Disney nor IMAX has said how many 70mm locations will carry either title, or how long each engagement will run. Those details usually arrive much closer to release, and after the summer just past, the competition for those screens is the thing to watch.
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