Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy shared her vision for Star Wars noting that she’s looking for directors “to tell stories that mean something to them.”
Speaking to the United Kingdom’s The Independent about a British Film Institute screening for the original Star Wars film, Kennedy first praised that film, “I would say this is the film everyone starts with when we start talking about story, George’s intent and what it is we’re trying to build off of.”
However, she then shared that what’s she building does not need to connect to the original film. She explained, “I really think that now we’re in a position where it’s broadened the possibility of stories and filmmakers we can bring in to tell stories that mean something to them.”
“It doesn’t necessarily have to connect to every little thing that’s been done in Star Wars; it can actually be a standalone story that then builds into many many other stories,” Kennedy added.
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Before Kennedy and Lucasfilm released The Force Awakens, Kennedy revealed how she was fundamentally changing not only Lucasfilm, but Star Wars as well. During an appearance at Fortune Magazine’s Most Powerful Women Summit in 2015, Kennedy stated, “I think the interesting path we’ve had is the conversation that took place around consumer products. Because there were a lot of companies that were in palce who frankly didn’t initially feel that Star Wars was for girls.”
She elaborated, “And when you have a company situation where between Lucasfilm and Disney, we were all looking at this situation saying, ‘No, with Star Wars we have to change this. We have to make sure that we create products that are in a sense appealing to both boys and girls.’ What’s wrong with that?”
Furthermore, Kennedy shared, “The fact that the company was bought by The Walt Disney Company has been amazing because they very much support the fact that we are trying to grow in the work force a number of women in executive positions and in all positions inside the company.”
“And with the movies that we are making and with the protagonists that we are putting in the stories. So I get a huge amount of support with that,” she continued.
She then touted, “But we have 50% of our executive team are women. And six out of eight of the people in my story group are women. And I’m sure there’s a lot of people that would be surprised that we’re making Star Wars movies and the majority of the people involved in the development of those stories are women. And I think it’s making a huge difference in the stories that we’re trying to tell.”
Lucasfilm’s most recent offerings on TV have not fared well for this vision as both The Acolyte and Andor were scrapped. Disney Co-Chairman Alan Bergman told Vulture in the middle of December, “So as it relates to Acolyte, we were happy with our performance, but it wasn’t where we needed it to be given the cost structure of that title, quite frankly, to go and make a season two. So that’s the reason why we didn’t do that.”
As for Andor, the show was originally was supposed to be five seasons but was cut down to just two. Showrunner Tony Gilroy admitted to Entertainment Weekly that Lucasfilm made significant budget cuts to the show as well, “By the time we got to season 2, and Bob [Iger] came back, everything had changed and everybody was belt-tightening. It's hard to ask for more money when they're laying people off at Disney, and we were like, ‘Wow, man. Well, we built half an aircraft carrier. We'd like to finish it.’”
“We made as many concessions as we could, but it was still a huge gamble on their part to keep going and still a huge ask,” Gilroy said. “So thank you, Disney, and thank you Lucasfilm. It was lot of tough conversations and a lot of anxiety, but really, in the end, they really backed our play.”
Additionally, as reported by IndieWire, during an appearance at the ATX Festival Gilroy revealed that Lucasfilm and Disney spent $650 million on the two seasons of the show, “I mean, [for] Disney this is $650 million. For 24 episodes, I never took a note. We said ‘F**k the Empire’ in the first season, and they said, ‘Can you please not do that?’ … In Season 2, they said, ‘Streaming is dead, we don’t have the money we had before,’ so we fought hard about money, but they never cleaned anything up. That [freedom] comes with responsibilities.”
What do you make of this new vision for Kennedy? Do you think it will work out?
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Star Wars is being run by a 70 year old woman and a fat dude wearing a fedora. So much winning!
"...filmmakers we can bring in to tell stories that mean something to them.”
Unfortunately, the "them" has mutant haircuts in dayglow colours, and, if dropped from sufficient height, could cause an ELE.