Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy is stepping down after 14 years at the helm of the studio that makes Star Wars, one of the highest-grossing Hollywood franchises in history.<\/p>\n
Kennedy, who was picked by Star Wars creator George Lucas to lead the company<\/a>, will become a full-time producer, the studio said on Thursday<\/a>.<\/p>\n Best known for steering the reboot of the science-fiction series, Kennedy oversaw hits like The Force Awakens but she was also behind the franchise’s first ever box office flop – Solo: A Star Wars Story.<\/p>\n Dave Filoni – who has worked on many of the studio’s animated shows – will take the role of president and chief creative officer, working alongside co-president Lynwen Brennan.<\/p>\n Filoni credited Kennedy for overseeing the “greatest expansion” in Star Wars storytelling.<\/p>\n Kennedy has led Lucasfilm since 2012, when entertainment giant Disney bought the studio, home to the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises.<\/p>\n She oversaw the relaunch of the Star Wars franchise with five feature films, which together have earned more than $5bn (\u00a33.74bn) worldwide. They include the sequel trilogy movies, starring Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver, which broke box office records in the US.<\/p>\n During Kennedy’s time in charge of Lucasfilm it produced shows like The Mandalorian, Ahsoka and the critically-acclaimed Andor series for the Disney+ streaming platform.<\/p>\n Kennedy also introduced more female leads and characters from diverse backgrounds. But that approach was criticised by some fans for what they saw as a social agenda being brought into the Star Wars franchise.<\/p>\n There was also backlash over Lucasfilm’s decision to create new shows that did not follow decades of Star Wars history from sources like novels and comics.<\/p>\n Kennedy will continue at the studio to produce its upcoming blockbuster films, The Mandalorian and Grogu and Star Wars: Starfighter, which will star Ryan Gosling.<\/p>\n “It has been a true privilege to spend more than a decade working alongside the extraordinary talent at Lucasfilm,” Kennedy said on Thursday.<\/p>\n “I’m excited to continue developing films and television with both longtime collaborators and fresh voices who represent the future of storytelling.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy is stepping down after 14 years at the helm of the studio that makes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,75,337],"class_list":{"0":"post-412344","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}