Chewbacca actor peter mayhew is releasing photos of an early star – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Chewbacca actor Peter Mayhew is releasing photos of an early Star Wars script

Jesse Grant/Getty Images
Jacob Kastrenakes
is The Verge’s executive editor. He has covered tech, policy, and online creators for over a decade.

A lot of last-minute changes went into making Star Wars the beloved series we all know today and not a potentially stranger adventure featuring a hero named Luke Starkiller and a weapon called a lazersword. Fans of the series may already know a lot about what was inside the early drafts of what came to be A New Hope, but now Chewbacca actor Peter Mayhew is giving the world a new look: he’s posting photos of his own copy of The Adventures of Luke Starkiller, as written in March 1976 — very shortly before filming began. Mayhew says that he’ll be posting a few photos each day, generating attention for a “big announcement” he’ll be making.

It’s not entirely clear what Mayhew’s announcement might be regarding, but there’s at least one easy place to start looking: Episode VIII. When the film’s cast list was announced on Monday, Mayhew’s name wasn’t on it, while other returning original stars, like Carrie Fisher, were included. That doesn’t explicitely mean that Mayhew isn’t involved — Disney may well have posted a truncated list — but it’s possible that he plans to announce his final Star Wars appearance. Mayhew already shared Chewbacca duties with another actor during the filming of Episode VII, so he may be getting ready to hand off the role.

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