'These Jobs Are Not Easy': Ex-Star Wars Boss Kathleen Kennedy Admits 'Relief' After Leaving Lucasfilm, Following Turbulent 14-Year Tenure

Lucasfilm veteran Kathleen Kennedy has admitted she feels "a bit of relief" after stepping down from her role as the boss of Star Wars, following a long and often tumultuous run.

Kennedy took Lucasfilm's helm in 2002 directly from Star Wars creator George Lucas, and oversaw the studio as it was sold to Disney, produced a new trilogy of mainline movies, and expanded its storytelling via an array of series on Disney+.

Some of these projects have been hugely successful, such as early seasons of The Mandalorian and the critically-acclaimed Andor. And while the Star Wars sequel movies ended in a firestorm of fan backlash and disappointment, they still raked in billions of dollars.

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At the same time, numerous Star Wars projects have flopped hard — or simply failed to get off the ground. Solo was a commercial disaster and also messy behind the scenes, as acclaimed directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller (The Lego Movie, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) were ditched mid-way through filming. Gareth Edwards was reportedly replaced for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story reshoots, while Colin Trevorrow was replaced during the development of Episode 9.

And then there is the long, long list of Star Wars projects discussed by Kennedy and others at Lucasfilm that have simply been lost to the sands of Tatooine. Most famously this includes The Hunt for Ben Solo and that trilogy of films from Game of Thrones showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, another trilogy from The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson, and a Knights of the Old Republic idea that could have kickstarted yet another trilogy. Marvel boss Kevin Feige was said to be working on a Star Wars project at some point, as was Luke Cage writer Matt Owens, as was legendary director David Fincher, as was British comedian Simon Farnaby.

A slew of other projects left over from Kennedy's tenure technically remain on the docket, though it is increasingly unclear if any will survive, particularly as Dark Phoenix director Simon Kinberg seems to have been given the opportunity to make Episodes 10 through 12. These include a continuation of Rey's story from director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, a Dave Filoni story wrapping up the Mandoverse, a Dawn of the Jedi project from James Mangold, a long-gestating idea by Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi, an even-longer gestating idea for a Rogue Squadron movie from director Patty Jenkins, and a return for Donald Glover as Lando Calrissian.

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"I suppose there's a bit of relief," Kennedy admitted of her decision to step down from Lucasfilm, speaking at the Bloomberg Screentime event in Los Angeles this week (via The Hollywood Reporter ). "These jobs are not easy and stepping into something like that that George [Lucas] had created was an incredible challenge."

Asked about the challenge of satisfying hardcore Star Wars fans while also appealing to a broad audience, Kennedy suggested this was a "challenge that all franchises [face], certainly something that's been around now for 50 years. You've got people where this means a lot to them," she continued. "But at the same time, the challenge is to try to create something new, something original. So finding that balance is really the toughest thing."

"I mean, I don't think you can do anything in terms of the movie business where every single thing is going to be a perfect hit," Kennedy concluded. "I think you learn things, I always like learning things from the movies that we do, the post-mortems we do on what worked, what didn't. But I'm always proud of the work that's been done."

Star Wars continues next year with ryan Gosling's Star Wars: Starfighter and Ahsoka Season 2.

Image credit: Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images for Disney.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social