Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm since 2012, reportedly has plans to retire by the end of this year from her position according to Puck and the Hollywood trades.
Kennedy was handpicked by George Lucas to steer the Lucasfilm ship following Disney’s purchase of the company in 2012. Since that time, Kennedy successfully launched the Star Wars sequel trilogy with the first entry, The Force Awakens, earning over $2 billion and the follow up’s, The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, both individually generating over $1 billion at the global box office.
In addition to the successful sequel trilogy, Kennedy also released Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, an off-shoot film from the Skywalker Saga, which earned over $1 billion dollars at the box office and helped launch Disney+ in November 2019 by releasing the first ever Star Wars live-action TV series, The Mandalorian, on the streaming services’ launch and the title went on to become the streamer’s most successful original series to date.
The early years of Kennedy’s tenure as Lucasfilm president were highly successful with only one commercial failure, Solo: A Star Wars Story, another off-shoot movie like Rogue One, which failed to crack even $400 million at the global box office. Kennedy fired the original directors of movie, Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) more than half-way through production and replaced them with Ron Howard (Rush).
Under Kennedy, Star Wars found success on Disney+ early on with The Mandalorian, its spin-off The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi and an off-shoot of Rogue One in Andor, which wasn’t a commercial success, but was a critical one, even earning a prestigious Peabody award. Star Wars has since been suffering on the streamer with viewership plummeting on recent series, The Acolyte and Skeleton Crew.
It’s in the years after the release of 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker when more questions have been asked of Kennedy’s position at Lucasfilm and some fans growing frustrated. In Kennedy’s later years of presidency, many Star Wars films have been announced and have fallen to the wayside – Rian Johnson’s (The Last Jedi) Star Wars trilogy, a series of films from David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (Game of Thrones), Rogue Squadron from Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman), a Kevin Feige produced movie and an untitled Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit) directed flick.
At this time there’s a number of Star Wars movies that have been announced that are still in development – New Jedi Order from Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (Ms. Marvel), Dawn of the Jedi from James Mangold (A Complete Unknown), an untitled trilogy from Simon Kinberg (X-Men: Dark Phoenix) and a ‘MandoVerse’ crossover event flick from Dave Filoni (Ahsoka). Production has wrapped on the next Star Wars theatrical release, The Mandalorian and Grogu, which is due to release in May of next year. Production is also expected to start on an untitled Shawn Levy (Deadpool & Wolverine) movie this Fall which may star Ryan Gosling (Drive) and could release in December 2027.
Kathleen Kennedy is considered one of the greatest producers of all time, producing or executive producing over seventy films and has received eight Oscar nominations. Kennedy’s early years at Lucasfilm will undoubtedly be considered a success, and rightly so. Even if Kennedy does retire from her position at Lucasfilm this year, expect to see her name still attached to Star Wars projects in the years that follow as a producer or executive producer, as those films would’ve been conceived, developed and greenlit under her stewardship.
I can’t help but wonder if Kennedy will formally announce to exit plans in April at Star Wars Celebration, but continue in her position for a few months that follow. Maybe we’ll get an announcement on who her successor will be, but I doubt it. Anyway, I’m not a Kennedy ‘hater’, but I do believe the time for a change is now and I’m happy that Kennedy seems to be stepping down on her own accord and some fresh legs with new ideas will be taking the reigns at Lucasfilm.
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