George Lucas' Successor Steps Down From Lucasfilm

After 14 years at the helm of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy is stepping down from the Star Wars factory founded by George Lucas. The Walt Disney Co. announced Thursday that it will now turn to Dave Filoni to steer Star Wars, as president and chief creative officer, into its sixth decade and beyond, the AP reports.

• Filoni, who served as the chief commercial officer of Lucasfilm, will inherit the mantle of one of the movies marquee franchises, alongside Lynwen Brennan, president and general manager of Lucasfilm's businesses, who will serve as co-president. "When George Lucas asked me to take over Lucasfilm upon his retirement, I couldn't have imagined what lay ahead," said Kennedy. "It has been a true privilege to spend more than a decade working alongside the extraordinary talent at Lucasfilm."

• Kennedy, Lucas' handpicked successor, had presided over the ever-expanding science-fiction world of Star Wars since Disney acquired it in 2012. In announcing Thursday's news, Disney CEO Bob Iger called her "a visionary filmmaker." Kennedy oversaw a highly lucrative but often contentious period in Star Wars history that yielded a blockbuster trilogy and acclaimed streaming spinoffs such as The Mandalorian and Andor, yet found increasing frustration from longtime fans.
• Under Kennedy's stewardship, Lucasfilm amassed more than $5.6 billion in box office and helped establish Disney+ as a streaming destination—achievements that easily validated the $4.05 billion Disney plunked down for the company. But Kennedy also struggled to deliver the big-screen magic that Lucas captured in the original trilogy from the late 1970s and early 1980s, and her relationship with Star Wars loyalists became a saga of its own.

• Filoni has established himself almost entirely on the small screen, entering the franchise with the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars and creating the tepidly received Disney+ series Ahsoka. Filoni, who first collaborated with Lucas on Avatar: The Last Airbender, has also been an executive producer on The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and Skeleton Crew.
• Before joining Lucasfilm, Kennedy was one of Hollywood's most successful producers ever. In 1981, she co-founded Amblin Entertainment with Steven Spielberg and her eventual husband, Frank Marshall. She produced ET, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Jurassic Park, and the Back to the Future trilogy.

• Kennedy tells Deadline that the highs of running Lucasfilm included "realizing how many people love Star Wars" and "bringing in new characters," while the lows included "that you've got a very, very small percentage of the fan base that has enormous expectations and basically they want to continue to see pretty much the same thing."
• She didn't rule out another Indiana Jones movie with Harrison Ford, though nothing is in the works right now. "You never know. But we are all still here, Steven and Frank and I, and Harrison and George," she said. "So we get to say whether there's going to be any more, or not."
• Kennedy's fingerprints will be on many coming Star Wars projects for years to come, the AP reports. That includes Shawn Levy's Star Wars: Starfighter, with Ryan Gosling, due in May 2027, and a fleet of other projects in various stages of development.