- Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy is stepping down, reports suggest
- Kennedy took over the company from George Lucas in 2012
- Her 13 years in the role has seen many highs and a few misses
It looks like Star Wars boss Kathleen Kennedy is preparing to hand over her lightsabre, hang up her Jedi robes and retire to Tatooine by the end of the year.
If these rumors are true, the move will mark an end of an era not just for George Lucas’s galaxy far, far away but for blockbuster movies in general. Throughout a career that’s spanned more than 40 years, Kennedy has played an integral part in the creation of countless movies that have formed the backbone of modern popular culture.
Read more: All the Star Wars movies and TV shows currently in development
Starting out as a talk show producer in the late 1970s, Kennedy got her big break when she became the assistant to Conan The Barbarian filmmaker John Millius. At the time, he was producing Spielberg’s war drama bomb 1941 which paved the way for an even bigger break.
After starting work as Spielberg’s secretary, she quickly became a producer in her own right, embarking on a career that’d see her play a key role on movies like Gremlins, Back To The Future, E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial and Jurassic Park, just to name a few.
Read more: Ryan Gosling to join Shawn Levy Star Wars movie
In 2012, she was appointed as Lucasfilm’s new boss filling George Lucas’s shoes after he decided to sell the studio to Disney. In the years following, she steered the Star Wars ship into brave new pastures – some of which were better received than others.
News of Kennedy’s impending departure was reported by Puck and while it’s yet to be officially confirmed, if true it’d end a busy 13 year stint for the mega-producer. So what better time to look back at the work she’s helped to create during her stint as Lucasfilm’s Jedi Master?
She produced Hollywood’s biggest movies
Much of today’s news will revolve around Lucasfilm and the future of the Star Wars franchise. However, Kennedy was already responsible for crafting our pop-culture obsessions long before she boarded the Millenium Falcon.
Her working relationship with Spielberg alongside her husband and fellow producer Frank Marshall is unparalleled. Under the banner of Spielberg’s studio Amblin, Kennedy Produced and Executive Produced many of your favourite movies, starting with Joe Dante’s monster classic Gremlins in 1984.
The Goonies followed shortly after, kick starting a winning streak that took her all the way up to 2016. Hits that carry Kennedy’s Producer credit include the Back To The Future trilogy, Jurassic Park, The Sixth Sense, The Flintstones and Schindler’s List. Her pop corn bills must have been through the roof.
She rebooted Star Wars
Kennedy became Lucasfilm’s new boss in 2012 and the role started with a bang. Not long after the news broke, audiences discovered they were getting a brand trilogy. As if that wasn’t enough, the unthinkable was actually happening: the franchise’s original stars of Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and, yes, even Harrison Ford would be returning to their iconic roles.
Franchise starter The Force Awakens was the worldwide hit you’d imagine it’d be. However, Rian Johnson’s sandwich-middle sequel The Last Jedi proved devisive and threatened to derail Lucasfilm’s new trilogy before it had time to make good on its initial promise. Behind the scenes difficulties, including the untimely death of Princess Leia star Fisher didn’t help matters either.
By the time threequel The Rise of Skywalker arrived, fans smelled some retconning and in the years since, the overall trilogy has garnered a bit of an iffy legacy. Still, nothing can stop Star Wars – and during her 13-year tenure, Kennedy oversaw a handful of big-screen spin-offs and a whole galaxy of small-screen ones too.
While this onslaught of Jedi and Sith storytelling has been labelled major over-exposure by some, it has certainly given us plenty of hits – like The Mandalorian and soon-to-be-back Andor.
Continued Indiana Jones adventures
Lucas and Spielberg finally re-teamed in 2008 to send Indiana Jones on another quest for fortune and glory. However, despite having some fun moments (that Indy intro scene will still go down as one of the great Spielberg hero shots), Kingdom of the Crystal Skull earned a questionable legacy among fans. CGI alien, we’re looking at you…
Thankfully, that wasn’t the end for Dr. Jones. In 2023, Kennedy enlisted the help of A Complete Unknown filmmaker James Mangold to replace franchise mainstay Spielberg in directed Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. The fifth film in the series caught up with old man Indy in an era that left him feeling wholly out of time.
While it was great seeing Ford back in the fedora, the movie’s big-swing of a third act ultimately divided fans. Still, this last ride managed to end Indy’s story on his own terms and keep any chatter of a (surely inevitable) reboot or TV series spin-off at bay… for now, at least.
What about those yet-to-be-produced projects?
Despite steering Lucasfilm into a brighter (re: cash generating) future, it hasn’t always been smooth sailing for Kennedy. Not every Star Wars project produced under her watch has been a success.
During the production of Han Solo spin-off Solo: A Star Wars Story, Kennedy famously ditched the movie’s original directing duo Chris Lord and Phil Miller and replaced them with Ron Howard. The movie went on to become the first Star Wars project to actually lose money at the box office.
The same thing almost happened with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story when original filmmaker Gareth Edwards was replaced by Andor’s Tony Gilroy. Thankfully, that film went on to become a box-office behemoth.
Still, Kennedy’s potential absence would leave a handful of projects in development hell. These include Donald Glover’s Lando spin-off movie, a proposed project from Game of Thrones masterminds D.B. Benioff and David Weiss, and Daisy Ridley’s own Rey film which hasn’t seen much movement since it was announced back in 2022.
Shawn Levy and James Mangold are also working on Star Wars projects. However, until a new Lucasfilm boss has been appointed, it’s unlikely that we’ll see any major announcements on any of these.
