{"id":379619,"date":"2026-01-20T04:13:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T04:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/379619\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T04:13:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T04:13:13","slug":"the-end-of-an-era-at-lucasfilm-kathleen-kennedy-leaves-while-filoni-and-brennan-must-find-their-way-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/379619\/","title":{"rendered":"The End of An Era At Lucasfilm; Kathleen Kennedy Leaves While Filoni and Brennan Must Find Their Way Forward"},"content":{"rendered":"

Happy Sunday, and welcome to a new edition of \u201cThis Week, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away<\/a>\u201c. And this is no regular edition, so we\u2019ll get right into it very quickly. As you might have heard by now, Kathleen Kennedy bid Lucasfilm farewell this week \u2014 an apt end for a week in which we had barely posted four articles by the time the news dropped on Thursday afternoon (Pacific time).<\/p>\n

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Tyler and Tom discussed the news on Thursday\u2019s\u00a0SWNN Live!<\/a>, and we\u2019ve also talked about it quite a bit on our Discord server, which you can join here<\/a>. (And while we\u2019re plugging, check out Josh\u2019s Character Spotlight on Merrin<\/a> \u2014 though I\u2019m not going near this one until I finish Jedi: Survivor!)<\/p>\n

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A quick detour, and we\u2019ll get started.<\/p>\n

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Three Things That May Have Flown Casual<\/p>\n

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General updates: We\u2019ll discuss the big Kathy Kennedy announcement below, but with it, came some general updates on the franchise. Long story short: the Dawn of the Jedi movie may no longer be a thing, while movies from Taika Waititi and Donald Glover are still alive \u2014 for now<\/a>. Simon Kinberg had to redo his entire outline for his trilogy last year. And Rick Famuyiwa had a show in development at one point, according to a report from TheWrap<\/a>. Could this be that \u201cGhost Track 17\u201d show<\/a> we never heard about?Yub nub: The original trilogy is coming<\/a> to Galaxy\u2019s Edge.Dropping mics: Have you seen how\u00a0Legacy of Vader wrapped its 12-issue series? That deserves its own column \u2014 or, you know, you can also read Sydney\u2019s review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>LONDON, ENGLAND \u2013 APRIL 07: James Mangold, Dave Filoni, and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy onstage during the studio panel at Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 07, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Kate Green\/Getty Images for Disney)<\/p>\n

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A New Era At Lucasfilm Begins<\/p>\n

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We all knew it was gonna happen this week. I was keeping an eye on my emails and refreshing Twitter during the first hours of the US morning, which is when these things typically drop. Finally, on Thursday afternoon, the bomb dropped on us \u2014 and it was exactly what had been reported. But of course, the interesting thing wasn\u2019t going to come from the StarWars.com article. We\u2019ll get to that.<\/p>\n

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Kathleen Kennedy is currently out as Lucasfilm President, and starting Monday, Dave Filoni will continue his duties as Chief Creative Officer, and also serve as President, with Lynwen Brennan serving as co-President. Last week<\/a>, I had posed five questions I was hoping the news announcement would answer; the first one was related to the delegation of duties. Nothing specific was revealed, which may hint at the fact that they haven\u2019t really figured it out yet. For now, we know that Filoni is in charge of the creative side, and Brennan is in charge of the business side. The center of the Venn diagram will be something for them to resolve as they go along.<\/p>\n

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Let\u2019s start with Brennan. She\u2019s been working at the company longer than Filoni, over 25 years. What\u2019s especially interesting about her is her ILM background. She rose through the ranks at the VFX company, which means she\u2019s no Harvard MBA just looking at cutting costs and looking good for shareholders; she has also dealt with creatives and gotten her hands dirty, to a certain extent. But what is also important is that her attachment to this company will allow her to fight for it. Kennedy was one of the guardians of ILM at Disney, and she fought as hard to keep the integrity of that company as she did the rest of Lucasfilm. Having someone from the inside will be beneficial for us all, especially in a time when AI is threatening the visual effects industry in the way that it is.<\/p>\n

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\"Kathleen<\/a><\/p>\n

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Filoni, we all know at this point. The internet is split on his appointment, with a significant portion concerned that we\u2019re just going to see a decade\u2019s worth of projects led by animated characters from The Clone Wars across live-action or animation, and the rest arguing against that notion. For now, I\u2019m giving him (the two of them, of course) the benefit of the doubt. But Filoni\u2019s track record does suggest that there is reason for concern. Even when he was paired up with Jon Favreau to create something \u201coriginal\u201d within the\u00a0Star Wars galaxy, he ended up spinning the whole thing into setting up (and executing) a Rebels\u00a0sequel series.<\/p>\n

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Can he deliver anything meaningful outside of this timeline? We still haven\u2019t seen anything that he developed as CCO from the beginning;\u00a0The Mandalorian and Grogu will be our first. And outside of the MandoVerse, we\u2019ll have to wait until next year\u2019s\u00a0Starfighter. (Perhaps\u00a0Maul: Shadow Lord had not entered development by the end of 2023, when he was promoted.) And no, I\u2019m not giving any credit to TheWrap\u2018s reporting<\/a> that he \u201cdisliked\u201d Andor \u2014 which is why we didn\u2019t include it in our story<\/a> covering that article, even before Lucasfilm\u2019s denial.<\/p>\n

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Of course, Filoni has been in the room discussing the development of many projects over the past few years. And we know that he\u2019s interested in pursuing stories beyond The Rise of Skywalker: He was involved<\/a> in Damon Lindelof\u2019s assignment of an elder Rey movie, as well as the development of\u00a0Starfighter, which takes place five years after Rey\u2019s defeat of Palpatine, and the hiring of Simon Kinberg, who is launching the franchise into a new era. And maybe he isn\u2019t that interested in the past, as the icing of James Mangold\u2019s Dawn of the Jedi might suggest. (We\u2019ll leave the autopsy of what happened there for another day, but this is certainly a possibility.)<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>LONDON, ENGLAND \u2013 APRIL 07: Dave Filoni, Daisy Ridley and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy onstage during the studio panel at the Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 07, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Kate Green\/Getty Images for Disney)<\/p>\n

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And under his guidance, Lucasfilm has kept trying to make the Rey movie from Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy happen. Even after Steven Knight left the project, the company went so far as to hire another writer. And yet, Kathleen Kennedy didn\u2019t even bring it up in her exit interview. It\u2019s possible that she just forgot, and when I pressed Lucasfilm about this, they insisted that the interview wasn\u2019t meant to be \u201cexhaustive\u201d of the full development slate \u2014 and yet, Deadline\u2018s Mike Fleming doubled down and asked Kennedy if she was forgetting any projects, and she didn\u2019t mention the Rey movie. We\u2019ll let this one pass for now, as I do believe it was a slip-up (she had no qualms in confirming that Dawn of the Jedi is DOA, or that Lando is very much alive, for instance), but I do believe it was indicative of how low a priority that movie is for them at the moment.<\/p>\n

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During that Deadline interview, Fleming asked precisely the question that I was hoping he would: What are Kennedy\u2019s biggest regrets at the company? And she gave an answer that surprised me quite a bit, honestly: the making of\u00a0Solo. And she says it wasn\u2019t because of the movie and how it turned out, but rather the idea from the beginning, as it was \u201ctoo soon\u201d. Again: too much to unpack here for a single article. We\u2019ll come back to this at some point\u2026<\/p>\n

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There are not many Kathy Kennedy takes you haven\u2019t read by now, so I won\u2019t be promising to write something that will finally open up your eyes. The truth is, my own feelings are complicated. She oversaw and still champions one of the best\u00a0Star Wars movies I\u2019ve seen in\u00a0The Last Jedi, and then followed it up with one of the worst, in\u00a0The Rise of Skywalker. She was incapable of putting a new movie into production for nearly six years, but she also went to war so that Tony Gilroy could make the most impactful and most moving Star Wars story this side of\u00a0Return of the Jedi.<\/p>\n

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\"Andor:<\/a>LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA \u2013 SEPTEMBER 15: (L-R) Tony Gilroy, Kathleen Kennedy and Diego Luna arrive at the special 3-episode launch event for Lucasfilm\u2019s original series Andor at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California on September 15, 2022. (Photo by Jesse Grant\/Getty Images for Disney)<\/p>\n

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To the new leadership, I would ask the same thing Bob Iger told Kathy when she took over: Be bold. That is a great piece of advice that Iger himself should apply to Disney at the moment. Do not capitulate to the fans if something doesn\u2019t work. Believe in the movies you are making and the stories you are telling. These things will outlive us, so they must endure the test of time, not the TikTok algorithm.<\/p>\n

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Filoni and Brennan will not have the same leeway Kennedy had under Disney. They will have to justify their titles at the company, and they are already eager to sink their teeth into that precious development slate. I do believe that some of the titles Kennedy mentioned as being in active development will go into carbonite over the next 12 months, and other movies will get fast-tracked. My biggest curiosity for how the new management will handle things actually relates to something not many people have discussed \u2014 at least none that I\u2019ve seen. And that is the issue of communications.<\/p>\n

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Under Kennedy, Lucasfilm managed to announce over half a dozen movies that never even got to pre-production: movies from Josh Trank, Rian Johnson, Kevin Feige, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, Patty Jenkins, and (possibly) James Mangold were axed very early in the process after getting the fireworks ready for the announcements; not to mention other ones for which the jury\u2019s still out \u2014 those from Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Taika Waititi, Donald Glover, and even Dave Filoni himself. Many others made their way into the press way earlier than they were supposed to.<\/p>\n

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\"Rogue<\/a><\/p>\n

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And yet, for all the transparency she had while announcing projects, Lucasfilm also kept many other cards close to the chest. Filoni is a walking version of J.J. Abrams\u2019 \u201cmystery box\u201d marketing tool, so I imagine the number of official announcements will be brought down significantly. He\u2019s been overseeing the MandoVerse with Jon Favreau, and has been able to keep the leaks to a minimum \u2014 remember when they managed to keep a Boba Fett show in secret until two weeks before they started filming?!<\/p>\n

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But at some point, the new leadership will have to tell everyone who\u2019s the boss now, and announce their own slate \u2014 or at least part of it. What is happening to the Disney Plus pipeline after this year\u2019s Ahsoka Season 2? And what about all of the movies we\u2019ve been talking about today? I don\u2019t expect a full press conference like James Gunn and Peter Safran had in their early days at DC Studios, and I\u2019ll definitely give them a few months to figure out what they\u2019re doing. Maybe it will be good to announce what the next five years of Star Wars will look like during\u00a0Star Wars Celebration 2027, while commemorating 50 years of a galaxy far, far away.<\/p>\n

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\"Star<\/a><\/p>\n

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What did you think of the latest edition of \u201cThis Week, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away\u201d? Let me know your thoughts and suggestions down below in the comment section. You can also send them, or reach out with any information tips, directly via our Contact page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Have a great week!<\/p>\n

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\n\"\" <\/a><\/p>\n

Miguel Fern\u00e1ndez 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,\u00a0but 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Happy Sunday, and welcome to a new edition of \u201cThis Week, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away\u201c. And…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,92206,2839,2591,38500,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-379619","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-kathleen-kennedy","10":"tag-movies","11":"tag-star-wars","12":"tag-this-week-far-far-away","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}