Updated

Updated · Deadline · Aug 20

Jonathan Tropper Details Writing $10M-Linked Lucky Finale and Star Wars: Starfighter

Updated

Updated · Deadline · Aug 20

Jonathan Tropper Details Writing $10M-Linked Lucky Finale and Star Wars: Starfighter

Q: What behind-the-scenes collaboration on Starfighter was so impressive that it instantly landed Jonathan Tropper the July 2028 Ghost Rider reboot?

It was the unusually deep, cross-department collaboration on *Star Wars: Starfighter*—especially Tropper’s work with director Shawn Levy and star Ryan Gosling—that impressed enough people to lead directly to the *Ghost Rider* reboot assignment. Tropper said *Starfighter* was unlike other films he had written because creative ideas were not coming only from the writing room. On this production, below-the-line departments were also actively shaping the movie, offering ideas and prompting rewrites during development. He described it as a rare experience in which departments were “not just executing” but “actually creatively inputting,” a dynamic he said he had never experienced before on a movie. He also singled out his collaboration with Levy and Gosling. Tropper had already built trust with Levy through three previous films, and during *Starfighter* he found Gosling’s voice, cadence, mannerisms and offhand comments so influential that they made their way into the script. Tropper said that strong collaboration with Levy and Gosling helped open the door to Marvel. In his own words, that “great collaboration with Levy and Gosling led to another opportunity”: writing the July 2028 *Ghost Rider* reboot. He added that he did not think he would have been “a slam dunk” at Marvel on his own, suggesting the *Starfighter* teamwork and confidence built around it were what secured the job.

Q: Why did Jonathan Tropper completely erase the search for Lucky's mother from the adaptation, and how did it change the finale?

Jonathan Tropper removed Lucky’s search for her mother because he and co-showrunner Cassie Pappas wanted the adaptation to center much more tightly on one relationship: Lucky and her father, John. They have said that was the emotional core that most attracted them in Marissa Stapley’s novel, and that stripping away the mother storyline helped sharpen the thriller mechanics, simplify the series, and keep the focus on Lucky trying to break the cycle of trust, betrayal and survival tactics she inherited from John. Stapley supported those changes. That decision significantly changed the finale. In the novel, Lucky’s search for her biological mother leads her to a new family history and helps drive the endgame, alongside the lottery-ticket plot and Priscilla’s arrest. In the series, with that storyline erased, Lucky is denied any outside rescue or alternate parent to run toward. She has to define herself without finding her mother and without being saved by money, romance or law enforcement. As a result, the ending becomes less about reunion and more about separation. After Priscilla lets Lucky and John go, Lucky ultimately rejects both the stolen fortune and her father’s way of life. She tricks John, sends the crypto seed phrase away, and walks off alone. Tropper said Lucky had to be “stripped of everything” to become truly free. Removing the mother search made that ending starker: instead of finding where she came from, Lucky chooses who she will become.

3 articles · Updated · Deadline · Aug 20

Jonathan Tropper said Shawn Levy chose him to write Star Wars: Starfighter after the director was offered a Star Wars film and allowed to pick his writer.
Starfighter was designed as a simpler entry point set beyond the Skywalker saga, with Ryan Gosling playing rogue Kade Auberon and a G17 Imperial Reaper central to the story.
Tropper said he wrote the script while showrunning Apple TV+ series Your Friends & Neighbors, with Levy, Gosling and Star Wars craft departments shaping rewrites because nearly everything had to be built from scratch.
The collaboration has already led to another franchise job for Tropper — writing a Ghost Rider reboot due in July 2028 — while he also discussed Lucky's finale, which centered on a chase for $10 million.