After practically 14 years on the helm, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy will step down this week, marking a serious — although anticipated — altering of the guard on the Walt Disney Co.-owned “Star Wars” studio.
In her place, present Lucasfilm Chief Inventive Officer Dave Filoni has been named president and can retain his inventive title and Lucasfilm Enterprise President and Normal Supervisor Lynwen Brennan has been named co-president, Disney stated Thursday. The pair will co-lead the San Francisco-based studio and can report back to Disney Leisure Co-Chairman Alan Bergman.
“When George Lucas requested me to take over Lucasfilm upon his retirement, I couldn’t have imagined what lay forward,” stated Kennedy, 72, in an announcement Thursday. “It has been a real privilege to spend greater than a decade working alongside the extraordinary expertise at Lucasfilm. Their creativity and dedication have been an inspiration, and I’m deeply happy with what we’ve completed collectively. I’m excited to proceed creating movies and tv with each longtime collaborators and contemporary voices who signify the way forward for storytelling.”
The transfer comes amid widespread hypothesis about Kennedy’s future. Handpicked in 2012 by “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” creator George Lucas to helm the corporate he based, Kennedy oversaw the growth of the “Star Wars” franchise into a brand new trilogy, two spin-off films, in addition to a number of TV exhibits, together with “The Mandalorian” and “Andor.” Below her management, the studio additionally grew its presence in Disney’s theme parks with “Star Wars”-themed lands in each Anaheim’s Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World in Florida.
However the growth, and her tenure, weren’t with out setbacks.
2018’s “Solo: A Star Wars Story” grossed a disappointing $392.9 million on the field workplace, after a fraught manufacturing during which the studio changed the administrators throughout capturing. A number of “Star Wars” tasks have been introduced over time with huge names hooked up, solely to be delayed or dropped, together with a deliberate trilogy with “Sport of Thrones” showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.
Kennedy informed The Occasions in 2019 that perceptions of director churn at Lucasfilm have been overblown.
“No one in our enterprise develops one thing with one particular person, that’s it, and all the pieces goes completely,” she stated on the time. “That’s a reasonably frequent a part of the method. We fall below unbelievable scrutiny as a result of it’s ‘Star Wars.’ Due to the standard I’m striving for, I’m reaching out to prime expertise, and vice versa.”
Kennedy additionally needed to climate scrutiny from die-hard followers concerning the new route of the franchise. However, the latest “Star Wars” trilogy grossed a collective $4.3 billion in worldwide field workplace income, with spinoff “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” hauling in additional than $1 billion globally and main to the favored sequence “Andor.”
She is going to proceed as producer of Lucasfilm’s subsequent two theatrical movies — Might’s “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” and “Star Wars: Starfighter,” which is being helmed by “Deadpool & Wolverine” director Shawn Levy and set for launch in 2027.
“The Mandalorian and Grogu” will mark the primary “Star Wars” theatrical movie since 2019’s “Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker.” Throughout manufacturing for that film, Kennedy requested Disney Chief Government Bob Iger if the corporate might take a pause on “Star Wars” movies to provide them extra time develop new storylines. At that time, the corporate had launched at the least one “Star Wars” film a yr since 2015, whereas Lucas himself had beforehand waited at the least three years between movies. (Since 2019, the studio did launch “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Future,” in addition to a number of “Star Wars”-adjacent sequence and and streaming movies, together with some Lego films and an ILM documentary.)
“After we acquired Lucasfilm greater than a decade in the past, we knew we have been bringing into the Disney household not solely probably the most beloved and enduring storytelling universes ever created, but in addition a workforce of extraordinary expertise led by a visionary filmmaker — somebody who had been handpicked by George Lucas himself, no much less,” Iger stated in an announcement Thursday. “We’re deeply grateful for Kathleen Kennedy’s management, her imaginative and prescient, and her stewardship of such an iconic studio and model.”
Each Filoni and Brennan step into their new roles as Lucasfilm veterans.
Filoni, who steadily wears a cowboy hat in public and is thus broadly recognizable to followers, was chosen by Lucas in 2005 to construct the studio’s animation enterprise. He created Lucasfilm’s first sequence, “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” in addition to “Star Wars Rebels,” was the chief producer on exhibits together with “The Mandalorian” and “Ahsoka” and is producer and author of the “The Mandalorian and Grogu” movie.
Brennan joined Lucasfilm visible results studio Industrial Gentle & Magic in 1999 and at present leads enterprise technique, franchise and manufacturing operations, in addition to ILM’s growth worldwide.
