Reports of Kathleen Kennedy’s retirement from Lucasfilm may have been premature. That’s according to the latest from CNN after speaking with “a source famriliar with the matter.”
To quickly catch you up to speed, yesterday Puck released a bombshell report that Kennedy intends to retire from her position as Lucasfilm President by the end of this year. Despite no official announcement from Lucasfilm, there are already a number of potential candidates to replace her. Some claim that Dave Filoni is the early frontrunner, a move that would undoubtely rejuvinate the fanbase.
But any such discussion is apparently premature right now.
CNN reports that a source familiar with the situation over at Lucasfilm stated “there’s nothing there right now.”
The source went on to emphasize that any announcement of Kenndey’s retirement will be made “public” when “actual decisions are made.”
Neither Lucasfilm nor Disney has responded to the rumors and probably won’t be doing so any time soon, if CNN’s source is correct.
CNN’s update probably won’t stop fueling the rumor mill regarding Kathleen Kennedy who has definitely fallen out of grace with many Star Wars fans over the past couple of years. Kennedy joined Lucasfilmin 2012 as co-chair alongside Star Wars creator George Lucas and was named president shortly after he left the company following Disney’s $4 billion acquisition.
Kennedy was initially credited with rejuvinating the Star Wars franchise, helping launch the latest sequel trilogy along with a handfull of spin-off movies and television series. It’s been a mixed bag of results for Kennedy who found success early on with Star Wars: The Force Awakens but has lately been overseeing more misses than hits.
Although Star Wars: The Force Awakens was a massive commercial success, grossing over $2 billion worldwide ($936M domestically), the box office returns diminished with each of the following films. 2017’s The Last Jedi grossed $1.3B worldwide ($714M domestically), while The Rise of the Skywalker, the final film in the sequel trilogy, barely cracked $1 billion globally and only made $515M at the domestic box office. General reception to the sequel trilogy was mixed with many feeling that The Rise of Skywalker was a disappointing end to the Skywalker Saga.
Kennedy also oversaw two spin-off films: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Solo: A Star Wars Story. Both yielded widely different results. Rogue One, which released in 2016, was hailed by critics and fans as one of the best Star Wars movies, while grossing over $1 billion at the box office. It also helped spawn the critically acclaimed Andor series on Disney+, which is about to launch its second season. Solo: A Star Wars Story, was a disappointing flop, grossing just $393 million worldwide on a budget around $275 million.
As Star Wars saw diminishing returns on the big screen, partly due to COVID and new viewing habits, Lucasfilm turned to streaming where it found mixed results on Disney+. For every hit show, like The Mandalorian and Andor, there have been flops, like The Book of Boba Fett and The Acolyte.
Other Lucasfilm franchises suffered worse under Kennedy’s watch, including Disney+’s Willow, which was panned by critics and eventually pulled from the streaming service, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Harrison Ford’s swan song as the globe-trotting adventurer.
To be clear, Kennedy isn’t to blame for all of Lucasfilm’s missteps, but she is the face of the company and, whether fair or not, is the one deemed responsible for all of its shortcomings over the past couple of years. She’s also the one constantly blamed by a certain subsection of the fanbase as the reason for Star Wars “going woke,” but that’s a whole other discussion.
