Star Warsfans are completely missing the most important thing Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy recently said when she addressed her potential retirement. The last week has been something of a tumultuous one in theStar Warsfandom, with reports that controversial Lucasfilm bossKathleen Kennedy is soon to retire. Kennedy ultimately addressed these claims in an interview withDeadline, insistingshe’s not set to leaveStar Warsanytime soon.
Kennedy’s word-choice was quite careful. She confirmed that succession planning is in progress, and that she will be making announcements sometime in the next few months or years. Kennedy carefully avoided giving a timescale for that, instead focusing on the fact she’ll be remaining active inStar Warseven when she’s no longer president. But perhapsthe most important comment has been largely missed.
Kennedy Spoke Openly About Lucasfilm’s Succession Planning - As Openly As Possible
She Insists Lucasfilm Has The Right To Make Announcements At The Right Time
Deadline’s interview with Kennedy is a curious one, and it heavily criticizes Matt Belloni, the industry insider who first broke the story of Kennedy’s apparent retirement. Kennedy tells quite a lot about the future ofStar Wars, and confirms succession planning is underway, but then makes an important point: “I’m continuing to stay at Lucasfilm and looking very thoughtfully with Bob [Iger] and Alan [Horn] as to who’s stepping in. So that is all underway, andwe have every right to make that announcement when we want to make it.”
Later, Kennedy expresses similar frustration over the way every aspect ofStar Warsproduction is discussed:
“What’s troubling and frustrating is thatour development gets scrutinized, and I don’t know any other production company where their development gets scrutinized like that.It’s very hard for anything to happen withinStar Warswithout some aspect of it becoming public before you even want it to become public.So I guess managing the message in some way is also quite a challenge because, of course, not every single thing we put in development we [are] going to make. That’s not unusual. We want to make those things that we feel are the best. We want to make those things that, as time passes, feel relevant to what the audience is responding to. So there’s constant discussion around that. So yeah, that’s a tricky one because a lot of the scrutiny aroundStar Warsand the negativity has been about development.Of course, we’re going to develop lots of different things with an understanding that not everything gets made.”
Kennedy’s point is a simple one; that there’s a sense of hyper-focus on Lucasfilm that she doesn’t feel is beneficial (or, indeed, appropriate). To be fair, when it comes to production, there’s a sense in which events like the Disney Investor Day announcements in 2020 - which led to so manycanceledStar Warsmovies and TV shows- contributed. The point stands, though;Kennedy feels it’s all gotten out of hand.
It’s likely Marvel Studios is the closest comparison with Lucasfilm, with the MCU coming under similar levels of scrutiny. Interestingly, there have been recent reports Marvel Studios intend to follow the Lucasfilm pattern, putting more concepts through the early stages of development before committing to them.
Lucasfilm Is Trying To Control The Narrative Now
The Studio Reserves The Right To Make Decisions Internally
Kennedy effectively doubled down on this point, indicating she feels a lot of the current discussion is unreasonable. As she points out, the succession is simply “an internal process that goes on inside a large corporation and a publicly held company,” and that meansthere are limits to what Lucasfilm can say, and when. Everything has to be done in a certain, legal, way - and there’s nothing unusual about that.
Succession planning is in progress, and that naturally means the topic of Kennedy’s eventual replacement is a live one right now. And yet, weStar Warsfans would perhaps do well to take Kennedy’s words to heart; this sense of hyper-focus on a company’s internal processes isn’t really helping. Lucasfilm is a company, and it has to go through things in a certain way, meaning announcements will be made when the time is right. Until then, we all need to cultivate the patience of the Jedi.
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