After fourteen years, Kathleen Kennedy has stepped down as the head of Lucasfilm, passing the reigns to Dave Filoni and Lynwen Brennan.
Kennedy has had a storied career in Hollywood, which began in the late 1970s working in TV before becoming John Milius's assistant. Through Milius she met Steven Spielberg, who employed her as a secretary but was impressed by her grasp of storytelling. She gradually got bigger roles, going from assistant on Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) to producer on E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982). She co-founded Amblin Entertainment with Spielberg and her future husband Frank Marshall in 1982.
She worked closely with Spielberg on most of his movies, and some with husband Marshall. In early 2012 she was recruited by George Lucas to become co-chair of Lucasfilm Ltd. when it was still an independent company. On 30 October that year, Lucas sold the company to Disney and retired, with Kennedy becoming President.
Charged with succeeding George Lucas and revitalising the success of Star Wars, her approach of identifying talented film-makers and giving them creative freedom initially achieved success: The Force Awakens (2015) and The Last Jedi (2017) were smash hits at the box office (the former still being the biggest movie ever at the American box office), and the former received critical acclaim (despite concerns over its conservative approach to the Star Wars greatest hits). The Last Jedi took much bigger creative swings but only achieved mixed critical success, becoming the most divisive of all Star Wars films. Rogue One (2016) was a success on both fronts, and the first live-action Star Wars TV series, The Mandalorian (2019 - present) was also a hit on her watch and helped launch the Disney+ streaming service to great success.
Unfortunately, The Rise of Skywalker (2019) received a critical drubbing and the film only achieved half the box office of The Force Awakens. Even worse, Solo (2018) had already become the first Star Wars movie to lose money at the box office. TV shows The Book of Boba Fett (2021), Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022) and The Acolyte (2024) also all underwhelmed. Outside of Star Wars, other Lucasfilm properties stumbled: the TV series Willow (2022) was written off as a tax exercise and removed from Disney+ altogether just a few weeks after release, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) underwhelmed at the box office, despite a reasonable critical reception.
To what degree Kennedy should be blamed for these failures remains a fierce point of contention among fans, with it being pointed out that changes in leadership at Disney with wildly different demands for the amount of content caused problems for not just Lucasfilm but also Marvel. More recent Star Wars projects have also been more successful: Andor (2022-25) has been critically lauded as the best Star Wars work of all time in some quarters, whilst Skeleton Crew (2024) was also warmly received critically, though its viewership on Disney+ was not strong (but at least it hasn't been removed from it).
Kennedy confirmed the transition period actually began two years ago, with the plan being to split her role in two: Dave Filoni will take over creative control of the franchise and Lynwen Brennan, formerly of ILM, will handle business affairs. Filoni started work on Star Wars on the Clone Wars TV show (2008-14, 2020) and Star Wars: Rebels (2014-18) before moving over to live-action as a writer, producer (and sometimes actor) on The Mandalorian.
Kennedy also has a foot in the door on forthcoming projects: she is a producer on The Mandalorian & Grogu, a movie spin-off from The Mandalorian due out this May, and Star Wars: Starfighter, due in 2027.
During her departure interview with Deadline, Kennedy also gave a brief update on other percolating projects. James Mangold's is on hold, apparently taking a wild swing with the Star Wars universe. His script is rumoured to be the Jedi origin story, set tens of thousands of years before the rest of the franchise. Taika Waititi has submitted a comedic script but the greenlight has not been given. Donald Glover has also submitted a script, and Steve Soderbergh and Adam Driver are pushing a script written by Scott Burns expanding on Kylo Ren, although this project is believed to be on hold. Simon Kinberg's project is still in active development, with a recent total rewrite of the treatment. More intriguingly, Kennedy confirmed that conversations have happened with David Fincher and Vince Gilligan over them doing takes on the franchise.
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