Kathleen Kennedy Defender Blames Fans For Her Exit Despite Her Explicitly Rejecting This Claim
Kathleen Kennedy defender John Rocha blamed Star Wars fans for the 72-year-old film producer stepping down as President of Lucasfilm.
The Walt Disney Company and Lucasfilm announced Kennedy was stepping down and being replaced by Dave Filoni and Lynwen Brennan in a blog post earlier this week. The company said, “Lucasfilm announced today that after 14 years of leading the studio, President Kathleen Kennedy is stepping down from her role. Kennedy will return to full-time producing, including the studio’s upcoming feature films The Mandalorian and Grogu and Star Wars: Starfighter.”
It added, “Dave Filoni, who worked closely with creator George Lucas to build the Lucasfilm animation department on Star Wars: The Clone Wars and helped launch Star Wars live-action series alongside Jon Favreau on The Mandalorian, will take on creative leadership of the company as President and Chief Creative Officer and Lynwen Brennan will serve as Co-President.”
In reaction to this announcement John Rocha wrote on X, “Star Wars fans drove out George Lucas and, now, Kathleen Kennedy. Let’s see what they do to Filoni and Brennan now. Yikes!”
Ironically, Kennedy rejected this narrative last year in an interview with Deadline. When asked if she was being pushed aside, she said, “Is absolutely not the case. It could not be further from the truth. And everything that we do inside of Lucasfilm is in lockstep and in communication with Disney. We all know what’s going on. The communication has been completely collaborative as you would expect. This is a big piece of business for them, and they want to empower me to help them make that decision and that choice. I’m doing that.”
And then when she was asked who would make the decision for her to step down, she said, “Me. It’s my decision. This is 100 percent my decision.”
She also rejected in an interview she gave with Deadline that was published yesterday sharing a timeline regarding her decision to step down as Lucasfilm President, “Two years ago, I went to Bob and Alan to figure out what the transition plan would be and I made the recommendation that it be Dave Filoni and Lynwen Brennan, the latter of whom has been running the business alongside me. … But my point is, we’ve been talking about this for two years.”
When she was asked about the possibility of pulling a Bob Iger and returning, Kennedy said, “That is not happening here. I told everybody I would stick around a bit longer than I had intended, but I am so ready to go off and have the chance to make lots of movies. I want to do more movies, and I want the opportunity to get back to a kind of eclectic group of movies the way I used to. I’m looking forward to working with Frank again on some stuff. He has been doing lots of documentaries and having a ball. I’m also really interested in the new technology, I have to say.”
On top of all of this, she indicated she’s willing to still produce Star Wars film, “I am open to producing any of what it is they need. Certainly in the things that I’ve been involved in, and the filmmakers that I’ve been working with, I’d love to see those through if I could. But I’m not mandating any of that. I’m genuinely trying to support the new team that’s coming in and encouraging them to make the decisions. They need to. You’ve got to be on board to drive these things, and so I’m really encouraging them to do that.”
NEXT: Kathleen Kennedy Issues Statement As She Steps Down As President Of Lucasfilm
John Rocha is always an anti-fan communist pig.
john rocca seems like a fag to me.