TMW #46: Star Wars Celebration takeaways and the most essential post-credit scenes

Plus, a quiz where the questions are very Hard(y)

Happy post-Easter,

And welcome to your Tuesday Wingman. Hope you had an egg-cellent Bank Holiday weekend - and if you were busy hunting/eating Easter eggs and missed any news from Star Wars Celebration, fear not; we’ve got some hot takes on the event, from Ryan Gosling joining the saga to Darth Maul making his umpteenth comeback.

Meanwhile, in honour of Sinners’ success, we’re celebrating Easter eggs of the non-chocolatey kind with a rundown of the most plot-important post-credits scenes. If you’ve ever headed for the exit in haste, this is the list for you.

And looking ahead to this week’s release of Havoc, today’s quiz focuses on its leading man Tom Hardy. What a lovely, lovely set of questions… We’ll be reviewing that film, plus other biggies including The Accountant 2 in Friday’s edition. In the meantime, we welcome your likes, shares and restacks. Your comments too, if you’re a paying subscriber - and if you’d like to become one of those for less than the price of a discounted Easter egg, click that subscribe button…

Thanks for reading,

Matthew (Matt and Jordan)

Five takeaways from Star Wars Celebration

The Wingman reflects on news from Tokyo’s galactic shindig…

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PEDRO PASCAL IS BIGGER THAN STAR WARS

Next year sees the release of the first Star Wars film in six years, The Mandalorian and Grogu, which is directed by series showrunner Jon Favreau. Of course, the film had a big presence at Celebration, but perhaps the most striking thing about the key promo image displayed on stage, is that Pedro Pascal is helmet-less as Din Djarin. When the series began, Pascal was cool, being best known for Narcos and Game of Thrones, but the initial sell was that the character looked a bit like Boba Fett. Following The Last of Us, The Fantastic Four: First Steps and general Internet Boyfriend stan-dom, he’s arguably the most popular actor on the planet, so expect to see his fizzog on a great many posters.

Also revealed at SWC was a first look at Sigourney Weaver’s character, a former pilot who engages Mando (and his sidekick) on a mission, as well of a brief glimpse at Jeremy Allen White’s Rotta the Hutt, who is now grown up, jacked, and fighting in a arena. There was also a tease of some Empire Strikes Back-esque AT-AT action. Favreau also confirmed that the film would release in IMAX, with the sets scaled up accordingly. (MM)

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THE GOSLING/LEVY STANDALONE MOVIE IS ON

Though it was arguably the worst kept secret of the convention, it was exciting nonetheless to have confirmation that Shawn Levy’s upcoming Star Wars movie was going to star Ryan Gosling, and more exciting still was the fact that the film was given a title (Star Wars: Starfighter) and a release date (28 May 2027). It’s arguably the first time a true A-list movie star has led a Star Wars feature, with the franchise typically casting up-and-comers or character actors rather than marquee names. That combined with Levy (an unashamedly mainstream filmmaker who directed the highest-grossing live-action film of 2024) and the straightforwardly thrilling title suggests a massively commercial proposition over ‘one for the fans’. Gosling was keen to prove his geek credentials with a Han Solo-quoting hat and a pictorial proof of his childhood bedspread. “The reality is that this script is just so good,” he said of Starfighter. “It has such a great story with great and original characters.” Nothing is known yet in terms of plot, but it’s going to be set approximately five years after The Rise of Skywalker. (MM)

OTHER STAR WARS MOVIES ARE STILL FROZEN IN CARBONITE

The dating of Starfighter does mean it has leapfrogged several other Star Wars movies though, chief among them the unnamed film that would see the return of Daisy Ridley’s Rey, which was announced two years ago at the last Celebration but has gone nowhere since. Just as quiet was the similarly announced-two-years-ago Jedi film from James Mangold, which would go back to the order’s earliest days to tell a Ten Commandments-esque epic. Also rumbling on is Taika Waititi’s even longer-gestating original film. “Taika is on Taika time,” admitted Kathleen Kennedy, though it was revealed that The Favourite and Poor Things writer Tony McNamara was now working on the screenplay, which might hurry things along. (MM)

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MAUL IS BACK - AND SO IS GEORGE (KIND OF)

Seems you don’t have to be a Jedi to have a wonderful afterlife. Despite having now been killed twice on screen (by the same person!), Darth Maul is set to enjoy another resurrection with a new animated show starting in 2026. Set after the final series of The Clone Wars, Maul: Shadow Lord will see the former Sith lord building his criminal empire, on a planet beyond the purview of the capital-E Empire. With actor Sam Witwer set to reprise Maul’s insidious vocals, it’s good news not just for fans of the character but for those keen for a taste of what George Lucas’ sequel trilogy might’ve looked like. According to an interview in 2020’s The Star Wars Archives 1999-2005, Lucas’ story treatments (turned down by Disney) for Eps VII-IX would’ve seen Maul become “the godfather of crime in the universe… as the Empire falls, he takes over”. Lucas also envisioned Maul taking on an apprentice, Darth Talon, an idea the show is apparently running with, according to reports of an in-room-only teaser shown at Celebration. It may be well over a decade since Lucas departed Star Wars, but we can still feel his presence. (ML)

A BIG BIRTHDAY BASH IS COMING UP

Next year is a big one for Star Wars, with the release of the saga’s first theatrical feature - The Mandalorian and Grogu - since 2019. But there won’t be a Celebration to mark the occasion; instead, the event is keeping its powder dry for 2027 and the 50th anniversary of Episode IV: A New Hope (or plain old Star Wars, as it was known back then). Following news of the BFI showing an original release print of the movie in June, is there a chance of a pre-Special Edition cut showing up at Celebration too? Or would that make for a bit of an awkward atmosphere if California resident George Lucas turns up to the event, which is being held for the first time in Los Angeles since 2007? (ML)

IN THE POST

Not all credits scenes are born equal. In honour of Sinners’ plot-crucial mid-credits sequence, here are six mid- and post-credits scenes that are required viewing.

Michael B. Jordan and Miles Caton in Sinners (credit: Warner Bros)

Marvel Studios popularised the post-credits scene in recent times, but as this week’s Sinners shows, their prevalence has spread far beyond the boundaries of superhero-dom. Most offer skippable bonus gags, sequel teases or reveal that (surprise!) the villain who met an ambiguous end is, in fact, very alive. But some feature story beats so integral to the plot of the film that toughing out a swollen bladder and numb backside to watch them is mandatory. Missed any of the following? Then you didn’t get the full picture. And needless to say, mega-spoilers follow…

Island Strife - Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Before he became the king of speed ramping, Zack Snyder cut his teeth on this punchy, post-28 Days Later remake of Romero’s zombie classic. At the end of the film the survivors literally sail off into the sunset. Happy ending, right? Very wrong. Part way through the credits, grainy camcorder footage interrupts Disturbed’s ‘Down with the Sickness’ to show that, after running out of supplies, the survivors docked on an island only to be swarmed by undead. Their fates are technically ambiguous but, let’s face it, no one is making it off there alive.