According to reports Puck and Variety, Disney is considering a replacement for the head of Lucasfilm — Kathleen Kennedy may retire «this year, while several interesting and well-known candidates are applying for her position.
Awakening, ascension and liberation
Kennedy has overseen the «Star Wars» and «Indiana Jones» franchises since Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012 for $4 billion and was responsible for bringing Star Wars back to theaters with a sequel trilogy that began with «The Force Awakens» in 2015 and concluded with «Rise of the Skywalker» in 2019. It was Kathleen who expanded the franchise with films unrelated to the Skywalker saga, such as «Rogue One» and «Solo. Star Wars. A History», and, in fact, numerous television series.
At the same time, her leadership skills were repeatedly questioned, including by fans. «The Force Awakens» is still the highest-grossing film in US box office history, but the triad of Skywalker-centered blockbusters performed significantly worse: «The Rise of Skywalker», for example, although it earned $1 billion, the amount was half that of «The Force Awakens»; while the spinoff film «Solo. Star Wars. A Star Wars Story» in 2018 was marked by a major financial collapse and became the first film in the history of «Star Wars» to lose money during its theatrical release. The situation with the «Indiana Jones» franchise is no better: the latest action movie of 2023 starring Harrison Ford failed at the box office and caused the studio to lose about $140 million.
Similarly, there is still some uncertainty about future projects: in the past years, Lucasfilm has announced several new films directed by James Mangold, Charmaine Obaid-Chinoy, and Taika Waititi — but none have been realized yet.
Who will lead Lucasfilm?
Once again, there were no official statements about the new head of Lucasfilm, as well as the announcement of Kennedy’s 100% departure, but industry insiders are already discussing several interesting candidates, citing their own sources at Disney. Thus, Jordan Rumi from World of Reel says that Kennedy may be replaced by the duo (or one of them) of Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau, and an official announcement of their appointment is scheduled for Star Wars Celebration in April.
Filoni currently serves as LucasFilm’s creative director and has worked on the series «Ahsoka» and «Mandalorian» — the showrunner of the latter, by the way, was Favreau, who, before working on «Star Wars», also directed two Iron Man films for Marvel and of the future «Mandalorian and Grog», which will be released in May 2026.
Hollywood Reporter duplicated this duo on the list of candidates, but added director J.J. Abrams («The Force Awakens» and «Skywalker Rises»), 20th Century Fox production president Emma Watts, and current Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige to the list.
«Many insiders believe that the best candidate for the job is Marvel Studios chief Feige, who has demonstrated an uncanny ability to balance corporate needs with an understanding of core intellectual property. He’s also a big Star Wars fan,» THR writes. «One Disney insider says that Feige is the only replacement that makes sense, but he needs to focus on Marvel.
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