Kathleen Kennedy Isn’t Retiring But She Is Planning Her Succession At Lucasfilm

Following recent reports, Kathleen Kennedy says she isn’t retiring, however she is planning her succession at Lucasfilm. In a recent interview with Deadline, which I assume was set up to get ahead of the rumors, Kennedy first off denied she is retiring. However, by retiring she means the movie making business. She is however planning her succession at Lucasfilm, which to me hints the stories were true.

My guess is that Disney wants to be the ones who announce this succession once they work out all the details. I would not be surprised to get an announcement at Celebration later this year, but that’s just a guess.

There’s a lot to cover from this Deadline interview so let’s get to it.

Retirement/Succession Planning

“The truth is, and I want to just say loud and clear, I am not retiring. I will never retire from movies. I will die making movies. That is the first thing that’s important to say. I am not retiring. What’s happening at Lucasfilm is I have been talking for quite some time with both Bob and Alan about what eventual succession might look like. We have an amazing bench of people here, and we have every intention of making an announcement months or a year down the road. We are in lockstep as to what that’s going to be, and I am continuing.”

“I’m producing the Mandalorian movie right now, and I’m also producing Shawn Levy’s movie, which is after that. So I’m continuing to stay at Lucasfilm and looking very thoughtfully with Bob and Alan as to who’s stepping in. So that is all underway, and we have every right to make that announcement when we want to make it.”

Notice that Kennedy does not mention either the still in development Rey Sequel movie, nor Kinberg’s trilogy here. My guess is months rather than years.

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Kennedy wouldn’t be pressed on who that successor is?

“I can’t say who it is because there’s just an internal process that goes on inside a large corporation and a publicly held company, as to how we go about making deals, finalizing decisions and making announcements. There’s nothing unusual about that, and we’re in that process.”

Kennedy also rejected the trades suggestion that the succession process was chaos. Kennedy says they’ve been planning this and spoke about how the role has grown since she started.

“Chaos? There has never been any chaos because we know exactly what the plan is. And we’ve been talking about it, as I said, nonstop for the last couple of years because for obvious reasons — I’m not going to be here forever. George asked me 13 years ago to step in, and now I’m looking at who’s going to replace me. And as I said, we have a bench of people internally to handle the business, the creative side. The job has grown also since I stepped in. There was no streaming, there weren’t a lot of the things that we’re involved in right now going on. So it has grown.”

Timeline

The trade pushed Kennedy on a timeline,

“We’ll probably make an announcement months or a year out, and I have every intention of sticking around to help that person be successful. I’m already producing the Mandalorian movie, and Shawn Levy’s is after that.”

Again, my guess is months. On whether she is being pushed out, Kennedy, as you’d expect says no.

“Is absolutely not the case. It could not be further from the truth. And everything that we do inside of Lucasfilm is in lockstep and in communication with Disney. We all know what’s going on. The communication has been completely collaborative as you would expect. This is a big piece of business for them, and they want to empower me to help them make that decision and that choice. I’m doing that.”

Kennedy also spoke about what it means to look after the Star Wars brand and how important it is to have new entry points for a new generation etc. You can catch the full interview at the link above for Deadline. I’m only covering what I deem as the highlights here.

Poor Completion Rate

Here’s a section I take issue with though. Kennedy talks about unfair scrutiny of the development process for Star Wars compared to other franchises. This is of course a response to criticisms of all the announced and then cancelled Star Wars projects in her tenure.

“What you just said, though, is so interesting to me, Mike, because that is the development. It doesn’t matter if you’re doing Star Wars or anything else. What’s troubling and frustrating is that our development gets scrutinized, and I don’t know any other production company where their development gets scrutinized like that. It’s very hard for anything to happen within Star Wars without some aspect of it becoming public before you even want it to become public. So I guess managing the message in some way is also quite a challenge because, of course, not every single thing we put in development we going to make. That’s not unusual.”

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“We want to make those things that we feel are the best. We want to make those things that, as time passes, feel relevant to what the audience is responding to. So there’s constant discussion around that. So yeah, that’s a tricky one because a lot of the scrutiny around Star Wars and the negativity has been about development. Of course, we’re going to develop lots of different things with an understanding that not everything gets made.”

This is gaslighting for sure. Some of these projects we watched Kennedy announce herself on stage to audiences. You can’t moan about scrutiny of a development process after you yourself build hype by announcing projects on stage. Naughty, naughty Kathleen. Some of those projects could have been kept quiet, but for the choice to announce them. No sympathy from me on this at all. It’s a valid criticism of her tenure.

Kinberg’s Trilogy And Levy’s Movie

Kinberg’s trilogy was mentioned next. However, based on what Kennedy said above, she is not producing this one. If she is, why didn’t she mention it with the ones she’s definitely producing?

“We’re absolutely rolling fast and furiously. That has gone exceptionally well, and he’s [Kinberg] literally going to script as we speak. We’ll see something probably around June. Simon, if you remember, he did some work with us years ago with the animated show, which was a really wonderful collaborative experience. And he then got very, very busy with X-Men and then recently became available again, and he segued into this space beautifully. We’re really excited about where that’s headed.”

“This is the next iteration, the new saga that moves us into the future.”

As for when Levy’s movie is set?

“That’s also in the future. It’s all post-[the first] nine. Shawn’s is a standalone Star Wars story that’ll take place post-nine, maybe five or six years out. And Mandalorian really stands on its own because there, we’re dealing with a whole other era in the New Republic. We have other development going on in that space as well. So that’s the space that we’re pretty much focused on right at the moment, because obviously with Mandalorian we have a pretty good sense of where that’s going. And with this, it’s all pretty much new characters. We may bring some of the characters back from the sequel saga, but pretty much new characters.”

Other Projects Already Announced

Kennedy states that 3-4 of the projects currently in development are ones she is confident will get made.

“To play it safe, I’d say three or four right at the moment. And a large part of it, Mike, is who is the talent we’re attaching? And that’s a challenge in and of itself these days because people get really busy. So you find yourself having to wait with a lot of the top talent doing streaming and movies now. They’re juggling schedules. And when you do Star Wars, you pretty much have to step into it and not have any other competing work going on. It’s a good two to three years minimum commitment, and that’s tough to get top talent to be able to carve out that kind of time. So that’s part of the challenge as well.”

Kennedy also mentioned briefly James Mangold’s movie and even Taika Waititi’s project doesn’t seem dead.

“Yep. He’s [Mangold] working on this script right now. Simon’s working on scripts right now. Shawn, we had been working with him already for about a year and a half. These guys are available now. Jim, he got delayed a bit because of the Dylan movie and the awards season. You have to accommodate top talent to a certain extent. And quality is so important with what it is we’re trying to do. I like to wait for people that I think are passionate and really good to step into Star Wars.”

Waititi

“Well, I keep waiting for Taika [Waititi], and he is working with another writer now. He’s so busy. I love him, I think if we ever do get a script from Taika, it’s going to be fantastic. I already saw a first act that I loved, but tying him down, it’s tricky.”

There’s a bit more as said in the full interview so check that out. But the most relevant points we have covered above for those who just need the quick facts. You’ll notice Kennedy makes zero mention of the Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy directed Rey Sequel here in this interview. I wonder how relevant that is?

Let us know what you think of her comments as Kathleen Kennedy says she isn’t retiring, but planning her succession at Lucasfilm.do you agree with me it will happen before the end of 2025? Thoughts below.

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