Star Wars
Star Wars boss confirms her future and says she will never retire from filmmaking
Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy confirms that they are looking for someone to succeed her in the future.
Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm, will never retire from filmmaking. This has been assured in statements to Deadline, although she has acknowledged that the company has initiated a process to find a successor for her position specifically. The veteran producer, now 71, was George Lucas' choice to co-lead the company before Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm. When the acquisition was completed in 2012, he remained in the position, where he has now been for more than a decade. As published by Puck, Kennedy had communicated his intention to retire, but what exactly did he say?
“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,” she repeated. “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”
According to Kennedy, both Lucasfilm and herself are completely on board with the way things are going. “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.”
“There has never been any chaos”
She was also asked if Dave Filoni, one of Lucasfilm’s top creatives, might be chosen to succeed her as president: “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.” The president has assured that there is nothing “unusual” and that internal processes are like that. The producer has also denied that there is any kind of chaos in the company: “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.”
Some voices have suggested that Kathleen Kennedy is leaving the company because she has been pressured to do so, but she strongly denies this: “Is absolutely not the case. It could not be further from the truth,” she said. “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,” she concluded.
Even though she is stepping down as president of Lucasfilm, Kennedy will still be tied to the company and ‘Star Wars’ for years to come, maybe eight or ten? “I don’t know if I’m going to say that, but yeah, it’s possible.”
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