With the announcement of Kathleen Kennedy stepping down as of this week, Deadline has just published an in-depth interview with the soon-to-be former President of Lucasfilm. In it, besides reminiscing about her producing past, Kennedy was asked about the current status of the Star Wars film slate, and she took the chance to give brief updates on which projects are still alive, and which ones might not get made after all.
Deadline asked, point-blank, where all of the announced Star Wars projects are in the development pipeline. Kennedy explained the following:
“I’ve got to tread a bit carefully here. Jim Mangold and Beau Willimon wrote an incredible script, but it is definitely breaking the mold and it’s on hold. Taika has turned in a script that I think is hilarious and great. It’s not just my decision, especially when I’ve got a foot out the door. Donald Glover has turned in a script. And as you have read, Steve Soderbergh and Adam Driver turned in a script written by Scott Burns. It was just great. Anything’s a possibility if somebody’s willing to take a risk.”
She later doubled down on Mangold’s movie, Dawn of the Jedi, being “on hold”, and how Donald Glover’s Lando, as well as Taika Waititi’s movie, will depend on Dave Filoni and Lynwen Brennan:
“Mangold’s is really on the back burner as is Soderbergh’s. I think the ones by Taika and Donald are still somewhat alive. That’s going to really be up to the new team to figure out. Dave, I know that Dave and Lynwen are very much on board with what [Simon Kinberg’s] doing, and that would be a new trilogy. In the timeline of things, that takes you well into 2030 plus. So that’s really what’s up next.”
The question of Rian Johnson and his infamous trilogy that never was also came up. Kennedy reiterated her past statements, saying that these movies never really happened because of Johnson’s Netflix commitments, but then she also mentioned that he might have been spooked by the online backlash (something the filmmaker has denied in interviews of his own):
“Once he made the Netflix deal and went off to start doing the Knives Out films, that has occupied a huge amount of his time. That’s the other thing that happens here. After Shawn and I started talking about Star Wars, Stranger Things kicks in and he was completely consumed for a while by that. That’s what happened with Rian. And then I do believe he got spooked by the online negativity. I think Rian made one of the best Star Wars movies. He’s a brilliant filmmaker and he got spooked. This is the rough part. When people come into this space, I have every filmmaker and actors say to me, ‘What’s going to happen?’ They’re a little scared.”
We’ve known since more than a year ago that Simon Kinberg is developing a film trilogy, of which he will write the first installment, and which will take place after The Rise of Skywalker. But we’ve not had many updates since. Kennedy explained that, after Kinberg submitted an outline of the story last summer, Lucasfilm told him to rework it — and they’re now owed a new draft in March. This is what Kennedy said:
“He’s working right now. He wrote something that we read in August, and it was very good, but not there. We’ve pretty much upended the story, and then spent a great deal of time on the treatment, which he finished literally about four weeks ago. And it’s a very detailed treatment, like 70 pages. And so he is expected to give us something in March.”
Kathleen Kennedy did not mention Dave Filoni’s movie in the interview (nor Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s). But The Hollywood Reporter did say in their story that Filoni’s culmination event “was put on the backburner”.
With regards to Starfighter, which wrapped shooting in December, Kennedy said the film was planned as a standalone adventure and not as the beginning of a new series. But she remarked several times how delighted she was with Flynn Gray, and that given the experience, she’s not ruling out potential follow-ups:
“It was envisioned as a single film. Shawn Levy just made the experience so pleasant for everybody, and we found this 14-year-old kid out of Ireland who had virtually no experience. That’s always risky, hanging a story so much on a child actor. You’re not exactly sure how comfortable they’re going to be. Flynn Gray turned out to be such a special kid.
When you cast kids, a lot of it becomes about the parents. He has great parents and got lucky there, too.”
With Shawn’s movie, this could go on, but it’s not our intention right now. We really made the movie as a stand-alone story. But you cannot ignore the fact that this young actor is so good. I will be very surprised if he doesn’t go on and we don’t try to see if there might be future stories. But it was kind of nice not going into this and not having to think that way. We could just make a movie and tell a story.”
At another point in the interview, Kennedy also confirmed that she was in early discussions with David Fincher about working in Star Wars (which we knew), but also Vince Gilligan about doing a TV show, and also Alex Garland (both of which we definitely didn’t know). She said:
“I’ve had early conversations with David Fincher. With Vince Gilligan for TV. I have sat down with Alex Garland, and others where the minute you say their name, you go, ‘Oh, that might be an interesting Star Wars.’”
Kennedy was also asked about her biggest regrets as head of Lucasfilm, and her answer was an interesting one: making Solo. This is what she said:
“No, I don’t really have any regrets. Well, maybe a bit of regret about Solo: A Star Wars Story. I brought Larry Kasdan in on, and we were so excited about that idea. And then when you’re into something and you realize fundamentally, conceptually, you cannot replace Han Solo, at least right now.
As wonderful as Alden Ehrenreich was, and he really was good, and is a wonderful actor, we put him in an impossible situation. And once you’re in it and once you’re committed, you’ve got to carry on. I think I have a bit of regret about that, but not about the moviemaking and filmmaking. I don’t have regrets about that. I just think that conceptually, we did it too soon.”
There’s more to the interview, including Kennedy’s interest in exploring artificial intelligence tools in filmmaking for her future endeavors outside of Lucasfilm, or looking back at producing E.T. and other films from her pre-Lucasfilm era. You may check it out in full here.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.