Crime Star Wars legend Kathleen Kennedy ‘expected to retire’ later this year - Producer has been instrumental in shaping the franchise for more than a decade.

UPDATE: Complete fabrication! She is just choosing a succession plan for many years down the road. But she will NEVER RETIRE FROM MAKING MOVIES BISH!

https://deadline.com/2025/02/kathleen-kennedy-clarifies-lucasfilm-exit-star-wars-future-1236304421/

L/A

Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy is set to step down from her role as overseer of the Star Wars franchise, according to new reports.

Kennedy joined the production company, which was founded by Star Wars creator George Lucas, in 2012 in the role of co-chair, alongside director Lucas.

Just a few months later, Lucas sold the company to Disney for $4bn and Kennedy was promoted to the role of president.

But film industry newsletter Puck reported on Monday (24 February) that Kennedy, 71, has told colleagues that she will retire by the end of 2025.

The Independent has contacted Lucasfilm for further comment.

The producer, who previously worked with Steven Spielberg on films including ET, Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List, oversaw the relaunch of the Star Wars franchise, kicking off with the release of seventh movie The Force Awakens in 2015.

The Force Awakens, directed by JJ Abrams was a huge box office success, grossing more than $2bn around the world, and also received a generally positive response from the film series’ legions of fans.

Disney went on to rapidly expand the franchise, releasing one film a year until 2019, including spin-off movies such as 2016’s Rogue One and 2018’s Solo, as well as Star Wars TV shows including The Mandalorian.

However, Kennedy’s tenure at Lucasfilm was not entirely straightforward. Both Rogue One and Solo had complex journeys to the big screen, with the former reportedly requiring extensive reshoots.

Kennedy also fired Solo’s original directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord while the Han Solo origin story movie was in production, eventually replacing him with Ron Howard.

As the franchise quickly grew, with the arrival of a slew of streaming spin-offs, some Star Wars fans seemed concerned that this speedy expansion was diluting the magic of the galaxy far, far away.

Various other projects, including a film trilogy from Game of Thrones screenwriters David Benioff and DB Weiss and another from The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson, failed to materialise.

The next Star Wars movie will be The Mandalorian and Grogu, which will debut in May 2026, marking the franchise’s first big screen release since The Rise of Skywalker, the concluding part of the reboot trilogy, arrived in December 2019

 

[Tasty Tatty]

> expected to retire

No, Mrs. Kennedy, I expect you to Diversity, Inclusion, Equity.

 

[Prester John]

That's the part I could never wrap my head around.

They could've handled it with a polished touch. Given the originals a proper passing-of-the-torch plot. Heck, have Luke wryly repeat Obi-Wan's line from ANH: 'I'm getting too old for this sort of thing.'

But instead they pissed all over the big three. But maybe that was the point. 'Disney SW is better than original SW, look how we made your heroes into shit!'.

Nah, Leia was exalted above the other two, becoming the true mentor of Rey Palpatine, but since the actual actress died, there was no good way to keep the character alive.

 

[Pokemon Conquistador]

George may have flubbed the Prequel Trilogy, but he was still trying to give the fans what they wanted. He stuffed it with enough cool shit to appeal to kids and teens, and it's still remembered fondly by many today.

Kathleen Kennedy was a former flunky with an agenda and a chip on her shoulder. She wanted to turn Star Wars into a Church to spread Social Justice because she believed that "giving girls good role models" and "righting the wrongs of the Patriarchy" were more important than maintaining the health of the franchise or making things that appealed to its original fans. She also used Star Wars as a jobs program for bitter cat ladies.

The last nail in the coffin was the decision to axe everything from the Original Trilogy because George still had some rights to it. The one thing that might have made DisneyNuWars tolerable was the idea that old fans could play around in a sandbox with new versions of their old beloved characters and settings, and Kathleen Kennedy crushed that dream like the fist of a vengeful goddess. She spent her life trying to destroy the Patriarchy, only to make it look like an appealing system; the only thing that could prevent delusional hags like her from destroying beloved institutions out of spite.

 

[E. Knee as Weapon - Cont.]

I disagree. The problem with the sequels is that they played it too safe and tried to hit too many beats from the OT.

I left the theatre after Force Awakens looking forward to the next one, despite the Super Death Star shlock, because I thought they were going to lean into Kylo's "kill the past if you have to" message and go in a new direction. Instead we got a bunch of shitty fan service and insipid storytelling.

 

[Echo_Doge]

They could've handled it with a polished touch. Given the originals a proper passing-of-the-torch plot. Heck, have Luke wryly repeat Obi-Wan's line from ANH: 'I'm getting too old for this sort of thing.'

But instead they pissed all over the big three. But maybe that was the point. 'Disney SW is better than original SW, look how we made your heroes into shit!'.

They wanted kids to go 100% for their new stuff and not look into all the old stuff.

The absolute last thing they wanted was kids saying "Gee, Han and Luke sure were cool. I should look more at the original Star Wars to find out more about them!", realize the old stuff was 100x better than the Disney slop, and start looking into the "Legends" stuff they nuked into non-canon.

So they portrayed the original heroes as old, washed-up, out-of-touch, and ineffective:

• Han has abandoned his ties to the New Republic, his wife, and his child to be a petty smuggler again. He's so bad at it that he's lost the Falcon and his failed attempt to reason with his son gets him killed.
• Luke is a failed Jedi who discarded all character growth from the original trilogy. He's such a bad trainer that he almost kills his nephew, gets all his students killed/turned to the dark side, and gives Rey no meaningful training before dying to provide a minor distraction.
• Leia failed at making her New Republic work, gave up on it, and went back to being the leader of a fringe group of rebels again. She's so bad at leading this rebellion that over the course of The Last Jedi, she's blundered into a trap that has destroyed their entire fleet, killed most of its personnel, and alienated their allies so much that no one bothers to even respond to their distress call.

They made these characters look like idiots and fuckups. If you hadn't seen the original trilogy, you'd be confused why anyone gave a shit about these lovers. And that's what they were hoping for.

 

[Would]

absolutely tanked her reputation in the process.

Pfft, for all she cares. She's set for multiple lifetimes and made the people she despises seethe while doing it.
Objectively a boss move.
Yes, she's a tremendous retard whom Disney decided to sink billions into making her moves come true, but a boss move all the same.

 

[marvlouslie]

Calling Kathleen Kennedy a "legend" is a bit of a stretch, but okay. LOL.

 

[Wherethereisawhip]

Pfft, for all she cares. She's set for multiple lifetimes and made the people she despises seethe while doing it.

She was already set for that the moment she was put in charge. I don't doubt that she wasn't already set for life before then too. But in the end she'll have nothing but an scorned legacy at best and at worst might just get fucked with by spite for doing such a poor job in the end.

 

[Death of an Ego]

Old star wars nerd checking in. Star wars the IP died to me not when the mouse bought it all, but when Lucas tried to retcon his own stuff before the prequels came out. I won't say I hate any of the original 6 movies, although the prequels were obviously pandering to parents more than the OT. The whole original universe was meant to be slightly goofy space opera with a massive side of merchandising (which Mel Brooks lampooned in spaceballs hilariously).

By the time Lucas was like "meh" and sold the IP rights to Disney, the whole thing was mostly dead in the water (outside of video games) anyways, because Lucas had made the bux and didn't really care enough to write more in universe stuff at that point, and tbh, I don't really blame him.

I tried to care about the sequels, but they just lack vision. I watched the force awakens (I think, who cares) and it was just rehashed shit from the OT with a bit of Disney dust and forced contemporary politics. And it was incoherent and dull. I will say that rogue one, while not a cinematic masterpiece, is still a good movie, watch it if you haven't.

Now, about Kathleen. She was an absolute gem back in the day in the way she could navigate Hollyweird due to her connections, and she was instrumental in a lot of good cinema. That said, giving her the reins of something like Star Wars was an absolute mongoloid move that no one could predict, because at that time, social media and identity politics had yet to be large in the former, and leak out of leftist academia in the latter. Once that ridiculous social wombo combo got traction, it was all over for most beloved IPs, and is why everyone complains about media and games now. It infected limo libs and their young upstart radical online mobs. Now everything has to be about not offending people, instead of telling any type of engaging story, whether it makes sense or not.

Anyways, I'll shut my nerd mouth up now and go back to playing TIE Fighter, Xwing, the Dark Forces remake, and the PC version of Battlefront 2.

 

[AnotherPleb]

Disney also killed the expanded universe. They could have used that to make things fans wanted, but no. That makes too much sense.

They killed it because they didn't want to pay licensing fees.

 

[ZazietheBeast]

Although I'm not sure if she had any involvement with this, the fact that the Disney Sequels were the setting for one of the worst DLCs ever released for The Sims 4 says a lot:

View attachment 7026610

It was so on-rails, that you couldn't even romance with Rey or Kylo unless you used mods, which would have been a big selling point for the pack.

And that's not getting into the mountain of unsellable toys because no-one wants the sequel trilogy. They are legit better off sending it to 3rd world countries or sell it at a bargain.

 

[The Dude]

I disagree. The problem with the sequels is that they played it too safe and tried to hit too many beats from the OT.

I left the theatre after Force Awakens looking forward to the next one, despite the Super Death Star shlock, because I thought they were going to lean into Kylo's "kill the past if you have to" message and go in a new direction. Instead we got a bunch of shitty fan service and insipid storytelling.

It was the Last Jedi where Kylo said "Let the past die. Kill it if you have to." Not TFA.

 

[Fapcop]

It was the Last Jedi where Kylo said "Let the past die. Kill it if you have to." Not TFA.

Wait! So we have ONE meme from the sequel trilogy.

And of course it’s from The Last Jedi, simultaneously the best and the worst of the three.

The worst because it’s a long ass car chase in space that doesn’t make a lick of sense.

The best because at least it TRIES to do something different instead of rewarming George’s old scripts with a heaping of soc.jus on top.

Rain Johnson should have ended it with Rey taking Kylo’s hand and joining him, instead of that retarded last 15 minutes of TLJ we got, and then let the third director figure out where the f to go.

The protagonist and antagonist joining forces in order to try something new? At least that’s not straight up cribbed from George’s notes from four decades ago.

 

[BradeRunna]

Dude was a middle aged boomer with like 20k views and he managed to piss off Disney and jewwood so hard they dedicated a 100$ million dollar failed show to fight him.
I'd gloat too.
I hope Null gets parodied on some shit on Netflix soon, that'd be cool.

View attachment 7023976

Have you ever seen Doctor Disaster?

He does the same shit.

 

[The Dude]

Wait! So we have ONE meme from the sequel trilogy.

And of course it’s from The Last Jedi, simultaneously the best and the worst of the three.

The worst because it’s a long ass car chase in space that doesn’t make a lick of sense.

The best because at least it TRIES to do something different instead of rewarming George’s old scripts with a heaping of soc.jus on top.

Rain Johnson should have ended it with Rey taking Kylo’s hand and joining him, instead of that retarded last 15 minutes of TLJ we got, and then let the third director figure out where the f to go.

The protagonist and antagonist joining forces in order to try something new? At least that’s not straight up cribbed from George’s notes from four decades ago.

There's also the "They fly now!" meme. And no, it wasn't the best or the worst. All three movies are equally shit. Different doesn't mean good. You can do something different and still have it be a massive, stinking, steaming pile of shit that's attracting flies.

 

[AnotherPleb]

Actually Baby Yoda was NOT KK's doing. He was created independently from KK by the makers of Mandalorian, which pissed her the fuck off especially after she tried to make the character female via executive fiat because fuck you for making the only commercially success sequel character make

It's funny how much that makes her seethe

The protagonist and antagonist joining forces in order to try something new? At least that’s not straight up cribbed from George’s notes from four decades ago.

That could have been interesting in the right hands

 

[Prester John]

There's also the "They fly now!" meme. And no, it wasn't the best or the worst. All three movies are equally shit. Different doesn't mean good. You can do something different and still have it be a massive, stinking, steaming pile of shit that's attracting flies.

"Somehow Palpatine has returned."

 

[Super-Chevy454]

"Producer has been instrumental in shaping the franchise for more than a decade."

I think, and someone else might already mention it, it's instead "producer has been instrumental in killing the franchise for more than a decade".

 

[Fapcop]

It's funny how much that makes her seethe

That could have been interesting in the right hands

Ikr? At least it would have been interesting and NEW instead of power girl boss wahmen being the only last hope yet again.

Clear the chessboard and end on a cliffhanger before episode 9.

(TLJ also was the only one with a little bit of romance, as cringe as it was. SW needs a little bit of heart.)

Watching J.J Abrams hamfisted change everything in TLJ in his movie to appease all the nerd rage will never not be funny to me. Somehow, instead of redeeming Luke, it only made him look schizophrenic.

“A Jedis weapon needs to be treated with respect!”

Wait come again?!

I half expected Luke to turn to the camera and do a minute long monologue about how the blue milk had made him crazy or some shit like that.

There's also the "They fly now!" meme. And no, it wasn't the best or the worst. All three movies are equally shit. Different doesn't mean good. You can do something different and still have it be a massive, stinking, steaming pile of shit that's attracting flies.

“They fly now” and “Somehow Palpatine returned!” Aren’t memes though. More like reminders on how deep the franchise has sunk into Disneys swamp of shit. I don’t think I ever seen them used outside of videos shitting on the sequels.

And I disagree on TLJ.

The franchise was irreparably damaged after TFA.

If I have to choose between a sequel that shits all over the old trilogy and a sequel that shits all over it and at least tries to do something new, I’ll choose the latter.

Episode IX is if anything even worse than TLJ.

TFA broke it, as I said. It’s like driving a car off a bridge. You can hammer out some of the dents, but you’ll never get it roadworthy again.

 

[AnotherPleb]

The franchise was irreparably damaged after TFA.

Tfa had ideas there, though. It would have been pretty cool to see Fin becoming the Jedi with Rey being the Han Solo figure.