Kathleen Kennedy Will Remain Lucasfilm President For Three Years More

She may not be the flavour of the month in the eyes of some folks after Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Kathleen Kennedy will be around for another 3 years. She was the target alongside Rian Johnson from those upset by the drastic changes made which created a toxicity never seen for a popular franchise as big as Star Wars.

The Hollywood Reporter is reporting Kennedy has signed up to continue as President of Lucasfilm until 2021. This will mean she will oversee the all the new slate of films and the expansion into more Television too. The move is certainly a vote of confidence for Kennedy who has been in charge since Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012. Like or not she has overseen 4 Star Wars films now grossing nearly $5 billion (under £4 billion) worldwide.

Despite this, Solo: A Star Wars Story critically was a mixed bag (more positive than negative), low box office return. She also had to replace Chris Lord and Phil Miller when the production was ending or in post-production. She even replaced Gareth Edwards with Tony Gilroy at the end of Rogue One, but still gave Edwards the credit. Even more recently replacing Colin Trevorrow with JJ Abrams for Star Wars: Episode IX.

The toxicity from The Last Jedi probably one reason why Solo was the first the franchise-worst performing film. At just under £400 million (£295 million) may be a good return for some films, its a loss of up to $80 million (£62m).

There has been a lot of alleged verbal between angry fans who didn’t like the big changes, Rian Johnson pounced on the Star Wars fan base. We all know changes had to be made bringing in the new to replace the old characters. The delivery angered fans and resulted in Social media fighting between those fans and director who blamed Kennedy for their anger. We do need diversity and equality but we should never say the anger is only coming from (white fanboys) as the Star Wars fan base is richly diverse. It deserves a diverse talented people who can keep the Star Wars franchise strong for a long long time.

At this stage, it’s hard to say what Kathleen Kennedy will be involved apart from Episode IX. Disney CEO Bob Iger thing will be slowing down in the Star Wars universe. We do know there is a lot of projects coming, with Rian Johnson continuing with his own trilogy. The Game Of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have something in the pipeline. Jon Favreau is working on a live-action Television show, with the animated Attack of The Clones series continuing as well. Not forgetting Disney’s own streaming channel and Kennedy will also be working on the Indiana Jones film that’s set for a 2021 release.