By Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy has reportedly told associates that she plans to retire by the end of this year reports Puck News.
Kennedy joined Lucasfilm in 2012 as co-chair alongside George Lucas. A few months later, she took the reins after Disney forked out $4 billion for the company and Lucas exited to enjoy his retirement.
Kennedy then relaunched the franchise, starting with J.J. Abrams’ commercially successful “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” followed by everything that came after, including several more films and multiple TV series.
That put her under intense scrutiny, not just from the industry but also from the public at large, and especially passionate “Star Wars” fans with some corners of the fandom likely to cheer this news.
Multiple projects underwent production teething problems, be it the sidelining filmmaker Gareth Edwards on “Rogue One” to the firing Chris Lord and Phil Miller from “Solo: A Star Wars Story” mid-production.
Several projects planned never came to fruition, and others were stuck in development hell. What was made has been a mixed back with some acclaimed efforts (“Andor”) and commercial successes (“The Mandalorian”) but also projects that have been divisive (“The Last Jedi”), contentious (“The Acolyte”), tedious (“The Book of Boba Fett”) and atrocious (“Rise of Skywalker”).
If she retires from filmmaking altogether, Kennedy will leave behind a long legacy of films – producing or executive producing over 70 films since the early 1980s including eight Oscar nominees. Amongst those are the “Back to the Future” and “Jurassic Park,” and “Gremlins” franchises along with “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” “The Goonies,” “Congo,” “Poltergeist,” “Twister,” “The Sixth Sense,” and many of Steven Spielberg’s films.
Lucasfilm has the second season of “Andor” launching in April along with the Star Wars Celebration event in Tokyo. That will be followed by “The Mandalorian and Grogu” film next year along with a second season of “Ahsoka”.
Source: THR
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