Lucasfilm CEO Kathleen Kennedy steps down

His successors are two studio veterans

Two experienced employees of the film studio will take over Kennedy’s duties, it said. As president, Dave Filoni will also be responsible for the creative direction of the company, while Lynwen Brennan will act as co-president. By choosing experienced Lucasfilm employees as successors, Disney is signaling that the “Star Wars” that fans love remains safe, wrote the New York Times.

George Lucas sold his company Lucasfilm to the Walt Disney Group in 2012, which gave it the rights to “Star Wars” and has continued the saga with films and series ever since. Bob Iger, Disney’s CEO, said farewell to Kennedy with high praise, calling her a “visionary filmmaker.”

Filoni praised Kennedy for the “greatest additions” to the Star Wars stories. “I am incredibly grateful to Kathy, George, Bob Iger (…) for their trust and the opportunity to lead Lucasfilm in this new role and do a job that I truly love. May the force be with you.”

Her time at the helm of Lucasfilm was not always easy, said Kennedy (72) in an interview with Deadline magazine. There is a “very, very small percentage of the fan base” who have enormous expectations and basically always want to see almost the same thing. “And if you don’t do that, you know from the start that you’re going to disappoint them.”

“I wouldn’t do anything differently”

But you can’t make everyone happy. “All you can do is tell good stories and try to stick to the core of what George created.” Then she added: “And I wouldn’t do it any differently and wouldn’t change any of the things we’ve done over the years.”

Kennedy’s career goes back decades. She was involved in the creation of cult films such as “ET: The Extra-Terrestrial”, “Jurassic Park”, “Back to the Future” and “Schindler’s List”. Her time at the helm of Lucasfilm was also marked by many successes, for example with the Star Wars series “The Mandalorian” and the film “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”. The US media, on the other hand, considers the film “Solo: A Star Wars Story”, which tells of the character Han Solo, to be a failure.