{"id":235861,"date":"2026-01-16T05:43:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T05:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/235861\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T05:43:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T05:43:07","slug":"kathleen-kennedy-steward-of-star-wars-steps-down-from-lucasfilm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/235861\/","title":{"rendered":"Kathleen Kennedy, steward of ‘Star Wars,’ steps down from Lucasfilm"},"content":{"rendered":"

After more than 13 years at the helm of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy<\/a> is stepping down from the \u201cStar Wars\u201d factory founded by George Lucas<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The Walt Disney Co. announced Thursday that it will now turn to Dave Filoni to steer \u201cStar Wars\u201d into its sixth decade and beyond. Filoni, who served as the chief commercial officer of Lucasfilm, and Lynwen Brennan, president and general manager of Lucasfilm\u2019s businesses, will inherit the mantle of one of the movies\u2019 marquee franchises. <\/p>\n

Kennedy, Lucas\u2019 handpicked successor, had presided over the ever-expanding science-fiction world of \u201cStar Wars\u201d since Disney acquired it in 2012. She oversaw a highly lucrative but often contentious period in \u201cStar Wars\u201d history that yielded a blockbuster trilogy and acclaimed streaming spinoffs such as \u201cThe Mandalorian\u201d and \u201cAndor,\u201d<\/a> yet found increasing frustration from longtime fans. <\/p>\n

Under Kennedy\u2019s stewardship, Lucasfilm amassed more than $5.6 billion in box office and helped establish Disney+ as a streaming destination \u2014 achievements that easily validated the $4.05 billion Disney plunked down for the company. But Kennedy also struggled to deliver the big-screen magic that Lucas captured in the original trilogy from the late 1970s and early 1980s, and her relationship with \u201cStar Wars\u201d loyalists became a saga of its own. <\/p>\n

While Filoni and Brennan will share leadership, Brennan is considered the more financially oriented executive. Filoni will have the creative reins. He\u2019s established himself almost entirely on the small screen, entering the franchise with the animated series \u201cStar Wars: The Clone Wars\u201d and creating the tepidly received Disney+ series \u201cAhsoka.\u201d Filoni, who first collaborated with Lucas on \u201cAvatar: The Last Airbender,\u201d has also been an executive producer on \u201cThe Mandalorian,\u201d \u201cThe Book of Boba Fett\u201d and \u201cSkeleton Crew.\u201d <\/p>\n

Before joining Lucasfilm, Kennedy was one of Hollywood\u2019s most successful producers ever. In 1981, she co-founded Amblin Entertainment with Steven Spielberg and her eventual husband, Frank Marshall. She produced \u201cE.T.,\u201d \u201cIndiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,\u201d \u201cJurassic Park\u201d and the \u201cBack to the Future\u201d trilogy.<\/p>\n

At Lucasfilm, her biggest hit came at the start, with 2015\u2019s \u201cStar Wars: The Force Awakens.\u201d<\/a> The J.J. Abrams-directed film grossed more than $2 billion worldwide. But the subsequent installment, Rian Johnson\u2019s \u201cThe Last Jedi\u201d<\/a> (2017), was bitterly divisive. The third film, Abrams\u2019 \u201cThe Rise of Skywalker\u201d<\/a> (2019), was widely panned by critics and fans, alike. <\/p>\n

After \u201cThe Rise of Skywalker,\u201d \u201cStar Wars\u201d went dark on the big screen despite a litany of announced projects. The dry spell is set to be broken in May by Jon Favreau\u2019s \u201cThe Mandalorian & Grogu.\u201d The intervening years have been marked by streaming successes in \u201cThe Mandalorian\u201d and \u201cAndor,\u201d but the future of \u201cStar Wars\u201d has felt increasingly uncertain. <\/p>\n

Struggles over tone and vision have been frequent. The 2018 Han Solo spinoff \u201cSolo: A Star Wars Story\u201d<\/a> saw its directors, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, fired during production and replaced by Ron Howard. Most found the mixed-and-matched result blandly disappointing. <\/p>\n

More recently, Adam Driver, who played Kylo Ren\/Ben Solo in the most recent \u201cStar Wars\u201d trilogy,\u201d divulged to The Associated Press<\/a> last year that he and Steven Soderbergh had developed a Ben Solo film with Kennedy and Lucasfilm\u2019s support for two years before Disney chief Bob Iger nixed it. Fans were so irate that a plane was flown over Disney\u2019s Burbank studios with a banner reading \u201cSave \u2018The Hunt for Ben Solo.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, the only \u201cStar Wars\u201d movie of Kennedy\u2019s stewardship to win widespread and prevailing approval from fans was arguably 2016\u2019s \u201cRogue One.\u201d<\/a> Gareth Edwards\u2019 spinoff was also a troubled production, leading to Tony Gilroy, eventual creator of \u201cAndor,\u201d overseeing reshoots. Yet despite that, \u201cRogue One\u201d \u2014 taking place within \u201cStar Wars\u201d but outside of the main Jedi storyline \u2014 might be the only film of Kennedy\u2019s \u201cStar Wars\u201d reign that managed to both stay true to the space odyssey\u2019s tone and to break new ground.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After more than 13 years at the helm of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy is stepping down from the \u201cStar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[139430,1763,138,156,3717,409,111,139,69,5021],"class_list":{"0":"post-235861","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-139430","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-movies","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-u-s-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}