#ReleaseTheLord&MillerCut!

Actually, I hope the Seth Green comedy/parody series, Detours sees the light of day at some point. Of course, that would still count as pre-Disney era Star Wars content. Looks like they produced two full seasons, for 39 episodes.

https://deadline.com/2026/01/lucasfi...&utm_id=658446

Lucasfilm change is now official. Kathleen Kennedy is stepping down this week. Filoni and Brennan take over as co-presidents.

Kennedy is still credited producer of Manalorian and Grogu and Starfighter.

A Shift In The Force For Lucasfilm's Kathleen Kennedy: The Exit Interview

https://deadline.com/2026/01/kathlee...ew-1236665253/

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kathleen Kennedy

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. And if you’re not going to do that, then you know going in that you’re going to disappoint them. I’m not sure there’s anything you can do about that, because you can’t please everybody. All you can do is try to tell good stories and try to stick to the essence of what George created.

Speaking only for myself, it was never about wanting repetition and no originality. Hell, she's the one that signed off on making VII a complete retread of A New Hope. The problem was her constant need to "deconstruct" beloved characters... basically tear them down to prop up bland new leads instead of successfully developing that new generation into characters audiences could love as much as the original heroes those series were built upon. Not to mention failing to put them in a story that was mapped out and actually building to something. She's still publicly marginalizing the damage she leaves behind by blaming it on unrealistic expectations of a fringe community? Is that why Rise of Skywalker made a billion dollars less than The Force Awakens and Dial of Destiny became one of the biggest flops in cinema history? Is that why Disney era Star Wars merch is sitting stagnant in clearance bins across the country? Her lack of accountability is one thing, but the continued blaming of a certain audience (no matter how insufferable) for rejecting her terrible creative instincts is one thing I won't miss. It's just a bad look for any president of a major company. Not that I'm a fan of the Filoniverse either, so this news is doing very little to improve my outlook.

I doubt much will change with direction of Star Wars but I hope im wrong. Change would require a turnover of all the political ideologues employeed under the Kathleen Kennedy regime that had nothing but hatred for lifelong Star Wars fans.

Some updates (or lack thereof) on previously announced projects:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kathleen Kennedy

Mangold’s is really on the back burner as is Soderbergh’s. I think the ones by Taika and Donald are still somewhat alive. That’s going to really be up to the new team to figure out. Dave, I know that Dave and Lynwen are very much on board with what Simon’s doing, and that would be a new trilogy. In the timeline of things, that takes you well into 2030 plus. So that’s really what’s up next.

Mangold's project was the origin of the Jedi movie, which she described as "breaking the mold and it's on hold." (hey, that rhymes). She called Waititi's script "hilarious" and Glover apparently has turned in a draft for that Lando project I'm sure will remain in development hell. She also called the script for "The Hunt for Ben Solo" movie that Soderbergh wanted to make as "just great", but it doesn't seem like it has a snowball's chance in hell of happening. As for Rian Johnson's aborted blank slate trilogy, she alluded that part of it not going forward (besides a busy schedule) was he "got spooked by the online negativity."

There's also a mention of a new trilogy by Simon Kinberg. I can't keep track if that's pertaining to the Rey movie, but she said the story has been completely overhauled with a new draft expected in March. I don't get how Kinberg keeps landing these expensive gigs. I'm still scratching my head how Fox allowed that man to utterly screw up adapting Dark Phoenix not once but twice. I guess it's because he always delivers such sparkling dialogue:

Forcing her out about 5 years too late in my estimation. I think Disney didn't want to rock the boat during Disney+'s critical growth phase as Kennedy was a known quantity running Star Wars.

Disney's biggest mistake since acquiring Lucasfilm was attempting to re-engineer Star Wars' target demo and pandering the brand towards a young female audience. Disney got incredibly arrogant when Star Wars: The Force Awakens did so well at the box office and thought they could do anything with the franchise. I think the executives really believed Star Wars movies weren't much different than their Disney princess films.

I actually agree with the comment about pandering towards a young female audience despite how it may seem inflammatory. And the reason is that I have watched a lot of YouTube reacters watching the original trilogy and absolutely loving it and a good portion of them are young women. They don't need to be pandered to and they certainly don't want to be pandered to for that matter.
As long as the story is compelling, it will attract fans. Don't overthink the demographics, just try not to be misogynistic in how female characters are written and portrayed and it'll work itself out.

Is she actually being forced out? The Deadline article makes it sound like she's voluntariliy stepping down.

Interestingly, this framing sort of makes a lot of the previous "Kennedy's leaving" rumors retroactively true, in that she maybe initiated this departure years ago, but extended it to ease the transition, and left on her own timeline. That doesn't read as "forced" out, since one would think if the were willing to force her out, they'd do it ASAP.

That's what it boils down to for me. Creatives have one job: make a good story. Do that, and the fans will come.

I believe Kennedy planned to permanently run Lucasfilm until retirement but Disney finally said enough is enough at some point. This is Disney allowing Kennedy to bow out gracefully without feeding social media hysteria. I don't think we'll find out the full truth for years.

I wouldn't want to deal with the stress of running such a popular IP that everyone has their eyes on and will happily tear your head off and rip you to shreds if you don't get right.

Star Wars celebration is next year and will be the 1st opportunity for Filoni to promote the brand and what is coming out. It's going to be pretty huge for him as the Creative President.

Is there any quote of her saying that? What does "retirement" mean in this situation? Like, stop working entirely?

Here's an interview from last year.
https://deadline.com/2025/02/kathlee...re-1236304421/
She said she's never retiring "from making movies," not saying she'd stay at Lucasfilm forever. And if you read the bits about "eventual succession," and "making an announcement months or a year down the road," with this recent announcement just shy of 11 months later, it all seems in line with her planning to step down for a while now.

Like, I guess you could think someone pushed her to start planning to leave, but someone saying "you need to leave, we'll give you a full year to plan your departure," seems awfully generous for a "forcing someone out" situation.

I just feel like some people don't want to face the reality that, from a business perspective, Kathleen Kennedy was running Lucasfilm just fine, and nobody at Disney was actively forcing her out. It's not enough for them that she's leaving, but she has to be leaving in disgrace of some form.

I think the Kathleen Kennedy Hater’s Club theme song was Mötley Crüe’s “Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away).”

His talents were put to far better use in the Glass Onion trilogy.

Yes, that's how the movies are referred to: The Glass Onion trilogy.

Rian made the best of the new wave of movies and shows.

Welp, I’m leaving this thread to never return.

Alternate better world:

Give Rian Johnson “The Acolyte” and the get the fuck out of his way.

Fuck Rian Johnson and his Star Wars contribution.

What an abortion of a movie. such missed opportunity. Tonally and cinematically looked nothing like any of the other entries in the other SEVEN fucking movies. Grey/drab washed out looking cinematography to go with a grey/drab washed out script. Not ONE scene with the big three? Not ONE? The Force Awakens wasn't perfect but it set up a pretty decent sandbox in which to play, but his Star Wars instincts were complete shit.

Now I won't totally blame him, as it still boggles my mind that after 40 years they didn't go into it with at least a rough outline for the new trilogy, letting each director just do what they wanted. Creative and brand insanity that lead to a disjointed unfulfilling mess.

Fuck Kennedy for letting that happen. And what they did with Indiana Jones.

With all three of the classic characters dead Johnson could still come back and shit all over Chewy, R2D2 and Threepio.

I forgot I commented lol. But I absolutely hold Lucas accountable (as you noted) - he was done with Star Wars when it was decided to wrap things up with Return of the Jedi - and it's been terrible brand management ever since.

Well, they already killed off Han in TFA (apparently at Ford's request), so that ship had already sailed by then. Agree about the look of TLJ being off-model... you forgot about all of the red all over the place.

I did like TFA well enough when I saw with a few caveats (no new Jedi order, no functioning republic, another goddamned Death Star). Abrams made a sloppy first down.Then Rian Johnson fumbled the ball on the next play. And Abrams got strip-sacked in the last seconds of the game.

Yeah, you can really see where Disney/Lucasfilm went into the new trilogy with the intent of making new Star Wars movies and not a trilogy that concluded the saga.

I go back and forth on Kennedy. I don't know if she's responsible for the mess Star Wars is in, or if she was just taking marching orders from the Mouse. The MCU turned into a similar shit show post-Thanos, so this might just be what Disney wants for their franchises.

As far as Indiana Jones goes, I place Dial of Destiny above Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, even though it has a lot of problems. KOTCS was so slick and sanitized and CGIed that it looked like a video game. DoD was closer to the look and feel of the first three movies, but it as also one of those movies that felt like they were still writing the script while they're shooting it and didn't know how they were going to end it.

I always thought they would all play "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" when she left.

That was while she was there, your song is what they've been chanting lately.