Kathleen Kennedy Admits to “A Bit of Relief” in Stepping Down from Lucasfilm

Loading Twitter/X Embed...
If tweet fails to load, click here.

quote:

---

Kathleen Kennedy admitted to feeling “a bit of relief” after stepping down from Lucasfilm earlier in 2026 following 14 years at the helm of one of the biggest American film franchises.

The longtime producer reflected on the end of her leadership tenure in the Star Wars universe during a Wednesday night interview devoted to her career at Bloomberg’s annual Screentime event in Los Angeles. Asked if she felt “bittersweet“ about leaving Lucasfilm, Kennedy said no. “I suppose there’s a bit of relief. These jobs are not easy and stepping into something like that that George [Lucas] had created was an incredible challenge.”

She recalled asking Star Wars creator Lucas, after he handpicked her as his successor at the company, if he had any material she should look at for direction on storytelling. At the time, Kennedy was a longtime creative collaborator or Steven Spielberg, having produced Jurassic Park, Lincoln and Munich, and had produced other major titles like Back to the Future, Twisters and Gremlins.

“He [Lucas] said, ‘No, no, it’s all here,’” she said, pointing to her head. “I said, okay, well that’s going to be interesting to try and mine that.” (She added that she received “a couple of paragraphs” with story ideas, but no story treatments.)

Kennedy’s tenure at Lucasfilm saw its moments of fan outrage in certain corners (the response to The Acolyte was particularly vicious) and praise (Andor), with Kennedy the face of the brand during both its peaks and valleys. And interviewer Brad Stone, the editor of Bloomberg Businessweek, was quick to ask her about the challenges of satisfying a broad audience including the diehard Star Wars fans.

“Well, I think that that’s the 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 said. “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.”

Stone said certain audiences felt Kennedy listened too much to certain fans. Did she learn anything from that experience? Kennedy maintained that she needed to pay attention to fans “without making that be a referendum,” but also to support artists with clear visions for stories within the Star Wars galaxy.

Her proudest accomplishments in the job, she added, were relaunching the film franchise with 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens and rolling out the Disney+ series Andor and The Mandalorian. She didn’t get specific, meanwhile, when asked about any regrets or potential do-overs. “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,” she said. “I think you learn things, I always like learning things from the movies that we do, the postmortems we do on what worked, what didn‘t. But I’m always proud of the work that’s been done.”

---