Nearly 50 years after George Lucas's original Star Wars first hit theaters, the film is getting a radical reformatting — not a remake, but a wraparound immersive treatment inside Cosm's 87-foot domes. Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope is set to begin screening at Cosm locations in March 2027, kicking off a multiyear, multifilm partnership between Walt Disney Co. and the shared reality company.
The deal was confirmed by Cosm and Disney, according to Variety, with the Star Wars presentation as its opening chapter. As reported by Deadline, the new version is scheduled to debut at Cosm's venues in March 2027 and is based on a 2019 update of the sci-fi classic. That 2019 edition was remastered to coincide with the release of Disney+, per the original article facts tied to this story.
Unlike a full reimagining, the film itself stays intact at the center of the experience. Variety reports the movie will be screened in its original format on the center of the dome's LED screen, with immersive visuals surrounding it — technically rendered at 12K resolution inside an 87-foot-diameter dome, according to CNBC.
Lucasfilm and ILM Join the Build
Cosm is working directly with Lucasfilm, Industrial Light & Magic and creative studio MakeMake to build out the visuals and sound mixing for the presentation, the same CNBC report notes. It's a lineup that mirrors how Cosm has approached past adaptations: supplementing an untouched film with CGI environments designed to expand, not replace, the original footage.
Financial terms of the Disney agreement were not disclosed, per the CNBC report. The companies have said the Star Wars experience will be shared across Cosm's network, and reports indicate it will be available at locations in Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit and Los Angeles, with tickets going on sale sometime in 2027, according to the same Variety report. Cosm is based in El Segundo, California, and its domed screen in the Los Angeles area is housed in Inglewood.
Cosm also plans to pair the screening with a themed food and drink menu inspired by the film, CNBC reports — a touch that echoes the company's past theme-park-adjacent presentations. A poster for the event was designed by artist Shepard Fairey, according to the original article facts tied to this story.
A Company Built on Live Sports, Now Chasing Film Fans
Cosm first drew attention for presenting live sports before expanding into film. The company refers to its productions as shared reality, and it has previously screened The Matrix, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory — all produced by Warner Bros., per the original article facts. CNBC separately notes that Cosm's prior Warner Bros. collaborations also included the horror film It.
Those earlier efforts offer the clearest preview of how A New Hope might look on the dome. In Cosm's Harry Potter shared reality presentation, the movie played in its standard format inside a smaller window, surrounded by added 3D visuals, according to CNET. A separate review from D Magazine described the original film as playing in its usual rectangle-shaped projection while a crew of custom animators at Little Cinema filled the rest of the dome with CGI graphics. That Harry Potter presentation's tickets started at $25 and scaled up to $66 for more desirable seating levels, D Magazine reported.
How long it takes to build one of these experiences is a point of some disagreement across coverage. CNET reported that the Harry Potter shared reality experience took about a year to develop, with Cosm's internal team working alongside Little Cinema and MakeMake Entertainment. D Magazine's report instead put the build timeline at 12 to 14 months, while a separate CNBC report on Cosm's broader slate of screenings said the process of creating film visuals and environments can take up to a year. The available reporting doesn't reconcile those estimates or confirm a build timeline specific to the Star Wars project.
Disney Becomes Cosm's Third Studio Partner
Disney is the third major studio to partner with Cosm, following Warner Bros. Pictures and Universal Film, Variety reports. Cosm also received a $100 million investment from Sony Pictures Entertainment in June 2026, Deadline reported, with Sony taking a minority stake in the company, according to the original article facts tied to this story. Cosm has theaters in Dallas, Detroit and Atlanta, and a location is in development in Cleveland, per those same facts.
The push into film comes as premium large-format ticket sales have become the theatrical industry's biggest area of growth, according to a separate CNBC report on Cosm's expansion. That broader trend helps explain why a company that built its name on live sports broadcasts is now courting major studios for immersive film rights.
Timed to a Milestone Anniversary
The Cosm presentation lands as Lucasfilm has separately announced a theatrical re-release of the original theatrical cut of A New Hope for the film's 50th anniversary — described by Gizmodo as the studio's first official re-release of that cut in decades.
That 2019 edition carries its own history of tweaks. A reference piece from How-To Geek notes that the 2019 Disney+ release further altered the Han and Greedo showdown, adding Greedo's now-infamous “Maclunkey” line. Whether any of that lingering debate factors into how fans receive the dome version in 2027 remains to be seen.
For now, Cosm's pitch is about expanding the theatrical experience rather than altering the film itself. As the original reporting on this story from the Los Angeles Times notes, Cosm's entertainment offerings are built to present the original film untouched while supplemental CGI content fleshes out the surrounding environments — a domed wraparound screen designed to create a sense of movement around a story moviegoers already know by heart.
