There have been years of rumors that Kathleen Kennedy is on the cusp of being ousted as the leader of Disney’s Star Wars empire, but now, at long last, the rumor has become true, and many fans of the mythic series are celebrating.
The official announcement was made on StarWars.com, noting that Kennedy is “stepping down from her role” at Lucasfilm. The company added, “Kennedy will return to full-time producing, including the studio’s upcoming feature films The Mandalorian and Grogu and Star Wars: Starfighter.
Lucasfilm went on to report that producer Dave Filoni will take on creative leadership of the company as President, and Chief Creative Officer Lynwen Brennan will serve as Co-President.
In an “exit interview” with Deadline, Kennedy spun her legacy as one of continuous victories, touting the box-office returns of theatrical films The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi (which she still lauds as “one of the best Star Wars movies”) and the critical raves for the streaming series Andor. However, she completely omits the existence of The Acolyte — an incoherent and hugely expensive Disney+ flop made by Harvey Weinstein’s former personal assistant Leslye Headland — and Willow, a lesbian-centric sequel series to the 1988 Ron Howard fantasy film that performed so poorly, it got unceremoniously booted from the streaming platform.
Kennedy also defended Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the action vehicle for octogenarian Harrison Ford which, unsurprisingly, lost over a hundred million dollars for Disney. “I have no regrets about that,” she declared, while throwing Ford under the bus as the brains behind the ill-fated project. “Harrison wanted to do that more than anything. He did not want Indy to end with the fourth movie. He wanted a chance at another, and we did that for him.”
Many fans of Lucas’s original works gathered to celebrate the end of Kennedy’s direct hand on the tiller of the Star Was universe, even though she wasn’t exactly fired. Social media has erupted with applause for the decision.
Youtuber Vara Dark is also celebrating, insisting that Kennedy ruined Star Wars and disrespected the series’ canon — bemoaning that the franchise is in major trouble thanks to her failed leadership.
“It could go so much better,” Dark told her nearly 200,000 subscribers, “because she is no longer greenlighting stuff that forces female-esque projects and pushing DEI initiatives and really pushing propaganda.”
Youtuber Star Wars Meg also noted that Kennedy’s decisions often went “horribly wrong,” such as The Acolyte.
Gary Buechler, the Youtuber known as “Nerdrotic,” brutally summed up Kennedy’s failed legacy:
While she continues to delude herself while riding off into the sunset with all her accolades and awards, the truth of the matter is she oversaw the destruction of the greatest cinematic franchise of all time, Star Wars, through creative mismanagement, prioritizing entitlement-driven agendas and virtue signaling over coherent storytelling — alienating fans and turning the biggest franchise in the history of Hollywood into a symbol of [the industry’s] creative decline. Simply put, despite all of her prolific previous work, Kathleen Kennedy will forever be known as the woman who killed Star Wars.
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