Lucasfilm Parks 1977 Star Wars on Scarce 70mm IMAX Screens

Lucasfilm said on September 8, 2026, that the restored 1977 Star Wars will play IMAX 70mm from February 19, 2027, then hand those same film rooms to Star Wars: Starfighter on May 28, 2027. The original film has never had an IMAX booking of any kind. Starfighter, shot with IMAX-certified film cameras, will be printed onto 70mm IMAX stock for a short list of film locations.

The dates sit 98 days apart on a circuit that, during Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, numbered 41 rooms worldwide and 25 in the United States. Those rooms cannot run two 70mm titles at once. The new movie was built for that tall frame. The old one was not.

Lucasfilm Puts the 1977 Film on 70mm IMAX

The studio’s own post is careful about what it is promising. Star Wars (1977) will be presented in IMAX for the first time ever, in digital or on film, as part of a yearlong 50th anniversary plan, with the newly restored original movie, later renamed Star Wars: A New Hope, playing a select number of IMAX 70mm film locations and other theaters for a limited time.

IMAX put the same pairing on its account the same day, with a line that does more marketing than physics.

Star Wars was made for the biggest screen possible.

In 2027, Star Wars (1977) and Star Wars: Starfighter will release in IMAX and IMAX 70mm: https://t.co/3j1zHmTihW pic.twitter.com/53Ca35ch5W

— IMAX (@IMAX) September 8, 2026

“Star Wars was made for the biggest screen possible,” the company wrote, pointing at both the 1977 film and Starfighter. The 1977 movie was made for a wide 35mm frame. The “biggest screen” claim fits the new one better, because Shawn Levy’s film was filmed for IMAX release and then converted to IMAX 70mm film prints for those same select film locations.

May 28 is the 50th anniversary weekend of the original premiere, not the anniversary day. Star Wars opened on Wednesday, May 25, 1977. Levy told a D23 audience in August that Starfighter would land on that same weekend.

We didn’t even plan it that way, but I can’t imagine a bigger dream come true.

Shawn Levy, director, D23

Ryan Gosling stars as Kade Auberon, a cynical rogue thrown into a galaxy-wide scrape after his past catches up with him. Jonathan Tropper wrote the script. Levy and Kathleen Kennedy produce, with Gosling, Mary McLaglen, Josh McLaglen, Dave Filoni, and Dan Levine as executive producers. Matt Smith, Mia Goth, Aaron Pierre, Jamael Westman, Daniel Ings, Flynn Gray, and Amy Adams round out the billed cast.

Only 41 Theaters Can Run Those Reels

Digital IMAX is a large network. Physical 15/70 film is a boutique. For The Odyssey, exhibitors had 41 film rooms on Earth and 25 of them in the United States, a footprint IMAX reached only after hunting down broken projectors and training 60 new projectionists from scratch. IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond has said the company has not made new IMAX film projectors in about 50 years, and that expanding beyond salvage pace is not practical.

The wider branded network is a different business. A year-end 2025 filing listed 1,864 IMAX systems in 91 countries. Forty-one film projectors sit inside that total as a specialty overlay, not as the product most ticket buyers mean when they say IMAX.

THE 70MM IMAX CIRCUIT

Those 41 rooms have been earning like a much larger circuit. IMAX ticket sales for The Odyssey passed $140 million worldwide against a $652 million global gross, more than 20 percent of the film’s take from well under 1 percent of total screens. Showings were extended through September 30, 2026. The next 70mm hold on the books is Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Three on December 18, 2026.

After that, Lucasfilm has now claimed February and May. A person who wants the analog print of either Star Wars title is looking at the same short map: the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, a handful of Regal and AMC houses, one screen in Buford, Georgia, the BFI IMAX in London, IMAX Melbourne, and a few more. Most of the country is not on it.

The Original Was Never Shot for That Frame

Star Wars in 1977 was 35mm film with anamorphic lenses, a wide rectangle. Fox did strike 70mm prints that summer, but they were 5-perf blow-ups with six-track magnetic sound, not IMAX’s 15-perf vertical frame. On opening weekend, eight of its forty-three first-week bookings were those 70mm prints, clustered in Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. The Mann Chinese in Hollywood was one of them on May 25, 1977. Fox ordered more 70mm prints later as the run exploded, still in that older 70mm shape.

IMAX 70mm is a different animal. The camera negative, when a movie is shot for it, fills a tall 1.43:1 frame. A 35mm anamorphic feature does not. After restoration, the 1977 film is slated to be blown up onto 15-perf 70mm for those rooms, which means either cropping the sides, floating the wide image inside the tall screen with empty space, or some mix of both, the way older non-IMAX sequences have been handled on 15/70 platters for years.

WHAT THE 1977 CAMERA ACTUALLY SHOT

• The negative: 35mm anamorphic, a wide theatrical rectangle, with some effects work on VistaVision and Technirama.
• The 1977 “70mm” prints: 5-perf blow-ups from that 35mm, about 2.20:1, in 8 of 43 first-week theaters.
• The IMAX 70mm frame: 15-perf 70mm, 1.43:1, the tall image The Odyssey was photographed to fill.
• The 2027 plan: a restored 35mm-originated film enlarged onto those 15/70 prints for a select list of film houses, plus digital IMAX everywhere else that gets the format.

That is why a 70mm IMAX ticket for 1977 Star Wars is not the same object as a 70mm IMAX ticket for Starfighter. One is a prestige enlargement of a movie that already had a 70mm life in 1977. The other is a print made from cameras certified for that tall gate.

Kade Auberon Arrives on 70mm Prints

Lucasfilm’s language on Starfighter is the tell. The film is “filmed for IMAX release, shot with IMAX-certified film cameras and converted to IMAX 70mm film prints.” Converted, here, means the production already captured image that can be timed onto 15/70 stock without inventing a taller picture after the fact. Levy gets the rooms the 1977 blow-up can only visit.

The May 28 date does extra work for him. It is the Friday of Memorial Day weekend in 2027, and it is the weekend chosen to rhyme with May 25, 1977. Gosling’s Kade Auberon is a pilot in a standalone story, billed as a new adventure rather than a sequel-trilogy hangover. Flynn Gray plays the kid who gets pulled into the scrape. Thomas Newman is on the score in trade listings, a choice that already tells you this is not a John Williams photocopy, even before anyone hears a cue.

The industrial sequence is blunt. Print the new movie onto the same rare stock the 41 rooms can thread. Put a restored 1977 title into those rooms in February so the projectors, the projectionists, and the audience habit are warm. Open Starfighter on the anniversary weekend in the format the cameras were rented for. Digital IMAX, which is most of the 1,864 systems, carries both films to everyone else.

Dune Leaves, Then Star Wars Arrives

The analog calendar is now a relay. The Odyssey holds 70mm IMAX through September 30, 2026. Dune: Part Three takes the platters on December 18. Star Wars (1977) is dated February 19, 2027. Starfighter is dated May 28. Lucasfilm has not said the 1977 reels stay in the platters for those full 98 days. Limited time is the phrase on the page.

THE 70MM IMAX HANDOFF

1. September 30, 2026: The Odyssey’s extended 70mm IMAX play ends.
2. December 18, 2026: Dune: Part Three opens in IMAX 70mm.
3. February 19, 2027: Restored Star Wars (1977) opens in IMAX, including a select 70mm film list, plus other theaters for a limited time.
4. May 28, 2027: Starfighter opens, with IMAX 70mm prints at a select number of film locations.

Odyssey already showed what a long 70mm hold can do when people chase the analog print. IMAX added late-night and dawn shows rather than adding a second dozen projectors, because the projectors are the bottleneck. A 1977 blow-up may not keep those rooms full until May. It does not have to. It only has to make 15/70 feel like the Star Wars way to see a movie again, then get out of the way when Levy’s prints arrive.

Which Cut Reaches Those IMAX Rooms?

The cut question is older than this announcement. On December 5, 2025, Lucasfilm dated a restored 1977 theatrical release for February 19, 2027, and described it as the classic Star Wars theatrical version, the one later renamed A New Hope. That is the version without the 1997 Special Edition’s CGI pass, the version in which Han Solo shoots Greedo first. A 35mm print billed as an early original even screened at the BFI in London in June 2025, with Kennedy in the room.

This week’s post repeats “newly restored version of the original movie” and does not publish a shot-by-shot map. Star Wars was already being tweaked in 1977, with small picture and sound changes between the May opening and later prints, so “original” is a family of objects, not one reel in a vault. The Special Edition that replaced it in theaters on January 31, 1997, is the thing fans are asking not to see. Lucasfilm has not released a frame comparison for the IMAX version.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The date: February 19, 2027, for the 1977 film in IMAX (digital or film) and other select theaters for a limited time.
• The other date: May 28, 2027, for Starfighter, including IMAX 70mm prints at select film locations.
• The cut, as billed: a newly restored original 1977 movie, matching the December 2025 description of a 1977 theatrical release.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The venue list: which of the 41 film rooms get 1977, which get Starfighter, and whether those lists match.
• The hold: whether 1977 70mm stays up for days, weeks, or anything close to the 98-day gap.
• The picture: crop, pillarbox, or a hybrid on 1.43 screens, and a public rundown of every 1977 vs 1997 change in this restoration.
• Tickets: on-sale date, still unannounced, with StarWars.com named as the place that will carry it.

The first argument in the replies to IMAX was not about Starfighter at all. It was whether this is the 1977 cut or the Special Edition with a new coat of grain. Until Lucasfilm publishes a spec sheet, that argument will travel with every trailer.

Most of the Country Gets the Laser Copy

For anyone outside those 25 U.S. film houses, “IMAX 70mm” is a headline that will resolve as digital IMAX, the laser auditorium down the hall from the regular screen. That is still the first time the 1977 film has been timed for IMAX presentation. It is not the same as watching a 15/70 platter in a 1.43 room. The laser copy may even be the cleaner way to see a 35mm restoration, because it does not ask a wide movie to pretend it was photographed up and down.

The analog tickets will behave like Odyssey tickets. They will sell in the metros that have the projectors, and they will not be added by building new machines, because the machines are not in production. Hollywood’s Chinese theatre, which threaded 70mm Star Wars on day one in 1977, is again on the short list of houses that can do the newer, taller 70mm. In May those platters are reserved for a film whose cameras were chosen for that gate.

Lucasfilm now has both ends of that tiny circuit on the calendar. The 1977 movie gets there first, as a blow-up with a birthday attached. Starfighter gets the rooms that can show the picture it actually shot.