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Kathleen Kennedy Is NOT The Issue... It's Something FAR WORSE (Star Wars)
29 Plays2 months ago
The latest Star Wars drama has fans asking: Is Kathleen Kennedy actually to blame for the franchise’s struggles? 🚨 In this episode of This is the Wayseekers, Austin breaks down the bombshell Deadline interview where Kennedy addresses the swirling rumors about her stepping down from Lucasfilm. We dive deep into Disney’s influence on Star Wars, the rise of nostalgia-driven content, and the future of the franchise—including upcoming projects like The Mandalorian & Grogu movie, Sean Levy’s mysterious Star Wars film, and the post-Episode IX direction.
🔥 Key Topics:
✅ Is Kathleen Kennedy leaving Lucasfilm?
✅ Disney’s role in Star Wars’ decline
✅ The future of Star Wars movies & TV shows
✅ Upcoming projects (Dawn of the Jedi, Taika Waititi's Film. Simon Kinberg Trilogy)
✅ Why Dave Filoni isn’t the answer to replace Kennedy
Don’t miss this raw, unfiltered take on what’s really happening with Star Wars!
S2:E13
This is the Wayseekers is a Star Wars podcast, with new episodes every Thursday on YouTube and audio platforms. Join your hosts Austin SWE and Scotty Holiday SW as they navigate their ways through the Star Wars galaxy.
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Transcript
Rumors about Kathleen Kennedy's Potential Exit
00:00:00
Speaker
Is Kathleen Kennedy actually the problem with Star Wars? For the last week, rumors have been swirling that the controversial president of Lucasfilm, who has now led the franchise for over a decade now, was on her way out. Certain Star Wars fans saw this as a sign of hope for a fresh start in the franchise,
00:00:17
Speaker
From the quality of the project's release to the way that Lucasfilm handles production nowadays, many people see Kathleen Kennedy as the symbol of everything wrong with Star Wars today. Because of this, rumors and conversation about her retirement or her firing or just leaving Lucasfilm in general pop up every couple of months, with the most recent being just a couple of days ago.
00:00:38
Speaker
This time, however, Kathleen Kennedy has spoken to Deadline in an interview explaining these rumors, but also her role at Lucasfilm as a whole. And I think it kind of uncovers a shocking truth here.
00:00:49
Speaker
Kathleen Kennedy is not the issue. It's something far worse.
Kennedy's Response and Continued Role at Lucasfilm
00:00:59
Speaker
Welcome back to This Is The Way Seekers, a podcast for Star Wars fans by Star Wars fans. My name Austin SWE and I'm not joined by my co-host Scotty Holliday today, but that's because this is a special episode of This Is The Way Seekers, an emergency episode if you will, because usually we do not release episodes of our podcasts over the weekend.
00:01:21
Speaker
But in the last week of Star Wars, there's been some absolutely crazy developments on top of the Star Wars and or season two trailer releasing, which is what we spent our last episode talking about.
00:01:32
Speaker
Of course, the day that we released that there's a giant article from Kathleen Kennedy with bombshells about the future of Star Wars. the rumors of her retirement and whether or not she actually will be retiring, but also just information about upcoming Star Wars projects, some of the movies we know are coming out, some of the directors that she's wanted to work with.
Solo Podcast Episode by Austin SWE
00:01:51
Speaker
It's a very interesting article, and it was just something that we absolutely could not miss out on. Unfortunately, Scotty could not join me with this episode. So you're stuck with me. I'm just doing a solo episode, which feels very weird.
00:02:04
Speaker
I haven't done a solo episode of this podcast, so we'll see how this goes.
Criticism of Disney's Impact on Star Wars
00:02:08
Speaker
Bear with me. I'm going to try and be entertaining. This is a topic that is very... near and dear to me, I guess not near and dear, but I've been talking about this for a long fucking time.
00:02:19
Speaker
I've been a Star Wars content creator since 2016, back when Rogue One was starting to release just the month before Rogue One released. It was a different Star Wars franchise back then. And I've seen over the years just how much people have fallen out of love with this franchise.
00:02:34
Speaker
and how much of that blame is put on the president of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy, who took over the franchise in 2013 when Disney bought Star Wars. Let's just be honest with ourselves here. Disney has a terrible track record with Star Wars since they bought the franchise and Lucasfilm as a whole.
00:02:51
Speaker
They've released some terrible, terrible fucking projects, some projects that I absolutely despise, some projects that a lot of people absolutely despise. And while there's some greatness that has slipped through the cracks in this current era of Star Wars, for the most part, the bad really outweighs the good. And the legacy that Star Wars has going for it in this Disney era is mismanagement, is piss poor quality.
00:03:14
Speaker
I mean, some of the projects that have released like Obi-Wan Kenobi, Book of Boba Fett, The Rise of Skywalker, they just feel... so poorly put together and like there was no care put into these projects. A lot of the time it seems like quantity is taking place over quality, you know, for a franchise that used to have so much greatness coming from it and so much innovation, it just is sad to see the way that Star Wars has gone downhill.
Complexity of Kennedy's Situation and Fandom Issues
00:03:40
Speaker
And of course, with Kathleen Kennedy being the president of Lucasfilm for these last 13 years, she's going to be blamed for that. She's the president of the company, right? It makes sense that she would be at least part of the issue, right?
00:03:56
Speaker
And with that, if she were to leave the franchise and leave Lucasfilm, problems would be solved, right? But quite frankly, I think there's a lot more nuance to the Kathleen Kennedy situation and why Star Wars has gone downhill that doesn't necessarily have to do with Kathleen Kennedy, but we'll get into that for sure in this episode.
00:04:17
Speaker
The biggest thing is that a lot of us know that there's been this hemisphere created within the Star Wars fandom and the Star Wars franchise where it's kind of known for negativity, negative fans, toxic fans,
00:04:31
Speaker
A lot of people see these issues with Star Wars, but there's this kind of manufactured pipeline online where it's turned into something else, whether it's pushing people into real world politics or being anti woke or, you know, saying that women are the issues and minorities are the issues.
00:04:50
Speaker
It all ties into Kathleen Kennedy obviously being a woman and being the president of Lucasfilm. There's a lot of just ridiculous bullshit that goes on, and it kind of clouds any actual conversation we want to have about the quality of Star Wars, because for so many people, it's just easy to see Kathleen Kennedy as a woman in charge and her being the issue with Lucasfilm.
Credibility of Rumors and Kennedy's Succession Plans
00:05:13
Speaker
But if you've been watching this podcast for the last few weeks, you know that a big focus of this podcast is still criticizing Star Wars and talking about the issues, but actually addressing the actual issues. We're not going to come up here and say that gay people being in Star Wars is the issue, that black people being in Star Wars is the issue, that a woman being in charge is the issue.
00:05:32
Speaker
Even if Kathleen Kennedy made some horrible decisions, her being a woman has absolutely nothing to do with it. And it sucks that that's kind of the vibe that's been happening within the Star Wars fandom surrounding this conversation.
00:05:46
Speaker
And a big part of that culture is the way that people have blown up online, kind of this idea that there's drama behind the scenes, that Kathleen Kennedy is like a dictator at Lucasfilm and All the time, there's these rumors that aren't very credible that she's retiring and leaving Lucasfilm and being fired and things like that.
00:06:06
Speaker
And it's gotten to the point where if you hear those rumors, it's kind of like, OK, whatever. It's just those people that have a hate boner for Kathleen Kennedy no matter what and don't want to have an actual conversation about the actual issues with Star Wars.
00:06:19
Speaker
But this time was different because this time it was reported or re-reported by actual credible sources like the Hollywood Reporter variety, these big Hollywood trades that don't usually just report bullshit. They usually know what's going on.
00:06:35
Speaker
This news this time that Kathleen Kennedy would be stepping down from Lucasfilm was originally reported at Puck News by Matt Belloni. Bellini. I'm sorry, not Belloni. He's been covering Kathleen Kennedy for a while now and kind of a lot of the missteps that have happened at Lucasfilm.
00:06:52
Speaker
He is someone who definitely has a hate boner for Lucasfilm, and it's something that's addressed in Kathleen Kennedy's kind of response interview to this news. um Basically,
00:07:03
Speaker
It's kind of true that she's stepping down as president of Lucasfilm, but she's not retiring. So it's like kind of true, but it's not. Here's what she had to say. She said, what's happening at Lucasfilm is I have been talking for quite some time with both Bob Iger and Alan Horn about what eventual succession might look like.
00:07:22
Speaker
We have an amazing bench of people here and we have every intention of making an announcement months or a year down the road. So Kathleen Kennedy, is stepping down from the president position at Lucasfilm. And she says there's going to be announcements for that in the coming months or a year down the road.
00:07:42
Speaker
That is true. That part is true. The part that is not true is she is not retiring from Lucasfilm. Her influence at Lucasfilm is not going to stop here. She says the truth is, and I want to just say loud and clear, i am not retiring.
00:07:58
Speaker
I will never retire from movies. I will die making movies. I'm producing the Mandalorian movie right now, and I'm also producing Sean Levy's movie, which is after that. So I'm continuing to stay at Lucasfilm and looking very thoughtfully with Bob and Alan as to who's stepping in.
00:08:13
Speaker
So that is all underway, and we have every right to make that announcement when we want to make it. So what sounds like what's happened what happened here is there's been these conversations about Kathleen Kennedy leaving Lucasfilm with Bob Iger and Alan Horn, and that kind of leaked and turned into Kathleen Kennedy's leaving Lucasfilm. And obviously,
00:08:36
Speaker
puck news who has been reporting about Kathleen Kennedy's missteps. Obviously, they're going to jump on this story that she's leaving Lucasfilm, right? It's something that falls in line with their agenda. Kathleen Kennedy is leaving Lucasfilm, guys. There's this is a new day. There's new hope for the Star Wars franchise.
00:08:56
Speaker
And a big part of that is making it seem like there's chaos going on behind the scenes. But Kathleen Kennedy has said there has never been any chaos because we know exactly what the plan is.
00:09:06
Speaker
And we've been talking about it, as I said, nonstop for the last couple of years, because for obvious reasons, I'm not going to be here forever.
Kennedy's Leadership and Filmmaking Background
00:09:14
Speaker
Kathleen Kennedy's in her 70s. She's 72 years old, I believe.
00:09:19
Speaker
She's getting there. She's she's getting there for sure. And like she said, for obvious reasons, she's not going to be around at lucasfilm forever she says george asked me 13 years ago to step in and now i'm looking at who's going to replace me the job has grown also since i stepped in there was no streaming there weren't a lot of the things that were involved right now going on so her job has grown and whoever will replace her has to be able to do those things and step into those things.
00:09:48
Speaker
The interviewer at Deadline asked her specifically about Dave Filoni. People know Dave Filoni as the creator of The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, the creator of Ahsoka Tano. His presence is known at Lucasfilm. He's been working on the Mandoverse project.
00:10:03
Speaker
um He has a Mandalorian movie coming up. He has Ahsoka season two coming up, and he's also the creative executive at Lucasfilm. So he oversees everything. He's basically the new George Lucas in this era.
00:10:15
Speaker
because George Lucas was never president of Lucasfilm. um It was always somebody else in the president role that Kathleen Kennedy curley currently has, and he was basically the creative head of Lucasfilm.
00:10:26
Speaker
That's what Dave Filoni's job is. He's not really an executive, so i don't know why people would want to see him replace Kathleen Kennedy. I just don't see him being that person that deals with the finances and and the day-to-day things going on there. He's not an executive. He's a creative. He started off as an artist and an animator. It just doesn't.
00:10:47
Speaker
His role is definitely best fit in a creative decision. And Kathleen Kennedy kind of dodged that question about Dave Filoni. She says, I can't say who it is because there's just an internal process that goes on inside a large corporation and a publicly held company as to how we go about making deals, vitalizing decisions and making announcements.
00:11:06
Speaker
There's nothing unusual about that. And we're in that process. So yeah, basically in conclusion there, we're going to find out more about her leaving Lucasfilm, but she's not going to be leaving. She talked about she's producing the Mandalorian movie. She's producing Sean Levy's movie. And we know that these projects are years out.
00:11:24
Speaker
her influence is going to continue being there. And she said that whoever steps in, she's going to continue helping them and make sure they're successful in that position. So she's not leaving Lucasfilm and she's not stopping to make movies.
00:11:37
Speaker
Her influence is always going to be seen at Lucasfilm, no matter what, no matter who steps in. And the idea of her being fired or pushed out, it's just not true because she says it's my decision. This is 100% my decision. She's involved in the process of who's going to be the next president of Lucasfilm.
00:11:56
Speaker
So whoever replaces her is still going to fall in line with the things that Kathleen Kennedy has brought to Lucasfilm.
Disney's Influence on Lucasfilm Strategy
00:12:02
Speaker
Now, what I want to talk about is, is is Kathleen Kennedy a good president for Lucasfilm? Has she done a good job with the franchise?
00:12:11
Speaker
I want to start off by saying that Kathleen Kennedy is one of the but most successful producers in Hollywood, one of the most successful female producers in Hollywood. She's produced more than 70 films that have collected over 120 Oscar and 25 wins, 25 wins for all of her movies in the Oscars.
00:12:32
Speaker
She's produced many classic films, including Jurassic Park, The Sixth Sense, the Indiana Jones franchise, E.T., The Color Purple, so many movies that you know and love.
00:12:43
Speaker
Kathleen Kennedy worked on those projects. And because of this, she was handpicked by George Lucas when he was ready to retire to step in and become the president of Lucasfilm.
00:12:55
Speaker
It's interesting, though, because as I talked about with Dave Filoni, Kathleen Kennedy was never an executive. She is a filmmaker. She has a filmmaker mindset. And she even says this in this deadline interview.
00:13:07
Speaker
I've never been an executive before. I'm a filmmaker through and through. i even approach the executive role as a filmmaker. I love working with filmmakers. That is my lifeblood. It's what I enjoy, enjoy more than anything.
00:13:22
Speaker
So because of that, it's almost weird to think that she is behind this current era of Lucasfilm that seems like it's devaluing art, devaluing its creatives, um not bringing anything new to the table, just regurgitating the same characters, the same storylines over and over again to nostalgia bait.
00:13:42
Speaker
How could Kathleen Kennedy be behind that with a filmmaker mindset? mindset And honestly, my answer to that question may ruffle a few feathers here, but I've already alluded to it at the beginning of this podcast.
00:13:55
Speaker
I don't think she's the issue. I think that Kathleen Kennedy is actually good for Star Wars and good for bringing innovation to Star Wars, bringing...
00:14:06
Speaker
to life the same ideas that George Lucas had where he really valued art, really valued filmmaking and innovating filmmaking as a whole.
00:14:17
Speaker
i feel like Kathleen Kennedy wants to uphold this. The issue that many people forget, she works under Disney. Lucasfilm is a company owned by Disney, the giant corporation where, let's be frank, art goes to die.
00:14:35
Speaker
Disney as a corporation in all of their studios is known for the same things that Star Wars is known for the same missteps that Star Wars is known for nostalgia bait, a bunch of sequels bringing nothing new to the table, just bringing back the same characters, remaking movies. I mean, look at Disney with the way that they've just created recreated all their animated movies into live action movies and are continuing to do so just to make money.
00:15:02
Speaker
There's no art there. There's no inspiration there. um The way that Marvel Studios has turned out literally in 2019 had the biggest movie of all time with Avengers Endgame, or I think at this point it's the second biggest movie of all time because Avatar retook its place.
00:15:20
Speaker
Still, it is a fucking big movie made over $2 billion. dollars And you've just seen the quality of Marvel Studios go way down ever since that point because they've diluted the brand with streaming, with bringing Disney Plus into the table where there's all these shows. There's like six Marvel shows a year on top of their four, three to four movies.
00:15:43
Speaker
There's no focus on quality. It's just quantity. It's just pump out content, pump out content. It was the same exact thing with Star Wars that Star Wars is facing. Look how much the brand has just been devalued since Disney Plus was introduced into the equation.
00:15:57
Speaker
That's Disney. That's Disney Plus. That's Bob Iger making these decisions. That's Bob Iger, the president of Disney.com. pressuring Lucasfilm, Marvel Studios, Pixar to focus on streaming and it's just killed their brands. That's a trend at Disney itself. That's not just Lucasfilm and Lucasfilm has to do what Disney says. Disney pays the bills. Disney keeps the lights on.
00:16:20
Speaker
Lucasfilm's job is to return Disney's investment. They bought Disney or they bought Star Wars for $4 billion. dollars Their job is to return that investment, make Star Wars even more valuable, continue to make more money.
00:16:34
Speaker
So if that means we're going to dilute the brand by releasing six fucking shows that are garbage, at least people are watching it. At least Obi-Wan Kenobi, as bad as the show was, was the most viewed Star Wars project ever on Disney Plus, right?
00:16:48
Speaker
That's their mindset. And it sucks. It sucks a lot. um And it seems to be that a lot of the things Kathleen Kennedy gets blamed for are direct results of Disney, not Lucasfilm.
00:16:59
Speaker
For example, one of the biggest criticisms that Lucasfilm faces is announcing projects too early. We know that there's been a ton of projects announced that didn't come to a fruition, that never came out, that were canceled along the way, that changed writers, that changed direction over time, and they were just announced way too early.
00:17:19
Speaker
that was did That was Disney. Disney pressured Lucasfilm and also Marvel Studios to prematurely announce things that were not ready.
00:17:30
Speaker
This was revealed in the MCU, The Reign of Marvel Studios, an insider book on the creation of the Marvel Studios project, the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
00:17:40
Speaker
where it says Kevin Feige and Lucasfilm chair Kathleen Kennedy appeared on screen to announce a dizzying number of new projects. Both Feige and Kennedy were pressured into announcing projects that were nowhere near ready, some of which have been since canceled or significantly overhauled and delayed.
00:17:58
Speaker
This is, of course, in reference to the 2020 Investor Day, where Lucasfilm announced a shitload of projects, so many projects. This is where they announced that The Mandalorian was becoming the Mandoverse. There was Ahsoka coming out, some new animated shows coming out.
00:18:13
Speaker
um This is where they announced the Acolyte and or so many different projects. And as you can see from this graphic, so many of them never actually came out or didn't come out the way that they were intended, canceled.
00:18:26
Speaker
And that was not Kathleen Kennedy's fault. That was Disney that made them announce projects that simply were not ready to be announced. Because the thing is, so many studios go through this process where they have ideas, they start something and know that only a few projects are actually going to come to fruition, that only a few projects are actually going to come out.
Public and Corporate Pressure on Star Wars Development
00:18:48
Speaker
The difference with Star Wars is that this process is so scrutinized, whether it's by Disney themselves forcing them to announce projects or even just things leaking or fans just wanting to know things before they're ready to be seen.
00:19:02
Speaker
um Kathleen Kennedy talked about this in this Deadline interview because Deadline says to her, you've got a long resume of big movies. Compared to that, how much tougher is the challenge of so much public scrutiny and second guessing by the rabid fan base?
00:19:16
Speaker
It's not uncommon to develop a project with big names who fall out when visions don't align, but they get reported as a big implosion. Kathleen Kennedy says, what you just said is so interesting to me because that is the development.
00:19:29
Speaker
It doesn't matter if you're doing Star Wars or anything else. What's troubling and frustrating is that our development gets scrutinized, and I don't know any other production company where their development gets scrutinized like that.
00:19:41
Speaker
It's very hard for anything to happen within Star Wars without some aspect of it becoming public before you even want it to become public. So I guess managing the message in some way is also quite a challenge because, of course, not every single thing we put in development we are going to make.
00:19:58
Speaker
That's not unusual. We want to make things that we feel are the best. We want to make those things that, as time passes, feel relevant to what the audience is responding to.
00:20:08
Speaker
So there's constant discussion around that. So yeah, that's a tricky one because a lot of the scrutiny around Star Wars and the negativity has been about development. Of course, we're going to develop lots of different things with an understanding that not everything gets made.
00:20:24
Speaker
It sucks seeing Kathleen Kennedy kind of talking around this aspect. She isn't going to fully put the blame on someone like Disney or projects being released early or or leaked early.
00:20:36
Speaker
But of course, that's what she's dealing with. And of course, as the president of Lucasfilm, she's going to be seen as the issue. And what's so interesting is Bob Iger, the president of Disney, has personally admitted himself to a lot of the missteps with Star Wars.
00:20:52
Speaker
And people still blame Kathleen Kennedy for those things. Even though Bob Iger has said himself, hey, I did that. They're still like, why did Kathleen Kennedy do that? It's the weirdest thing ever. For example, one of the biggest narratives out there is that Kathleen Kennedy threw away George Lucas's scripts for the sequel trilogy and his story treatments for episodes seven, eight and nine when Disney was going to create those movies.
00:21:19
Speaker
Disney had bought those story treatments from George Lucas. They bought the scripts that George Lucas had, and George Lucas sort of took that as they're going to make my movies. George Lucas was supposed to be way more involved with the sequel trilogy movies than he actually was.
00:21:36
Speaker
Basically, let's just read what Bob Iger wrote in his book. He wrote this in his own autobiography. He said, george immediately got upset as they began to describe the plot and it dawned on him that we weren't using one of the stories he submitted during the negotiations George knew we weren't contacted contractually bound to anything, but he thought that our buying the story treatments was a tacit promise that we'd follow them, and he was disappointed that his story was being discarded.
00:22:03
Speaker
I'd been so careful since our first conversation not to mislead him in any way, and I didn't think I had now, but I could have handled it better. George felt betrayed, and while this whole process would not have been easy for him, we'd gotten off to an ah unnecessarily rocky start.
00:22:20
Speaker
Bob Iger threw away George Lucas's fucking stories. And i don't give a fuck what he says about George Lucas knew we weren't contractually bound or whatever the fuck.
00:22:31
Speaker
Bob Iger was so very clearly manipulative and tricky with the way that he went about acquiring Lucasfilm and kind of rug pulling George Lucas, basically being like, yeah, of course we're going to take into consideration what you want. We're even going to buy your story treatments. Why the fuck would you buy his story treatments if you weren't actually going to use them?
00:22:55
Speaker
It's like, is George Lucas even crazy for thinking that they weren't like, obviously they were going to use them if they buy them. But no, of course, they just bought them because they wanted to trick George Lucas into thinking, oh, yeah, the the franchise is in good hands.
00:23:10
Speaker
It wasn't. What people have to remember is that George Lucas handpicked Kathleen Kennedy to run Lucasfilm, not to work with Disney, not to work with Bob Iger, to run Lucasfilm, run his baby. He handpicked her.
00:23:23
Speaker
In George Lucas's mind, Lucasfilm and Star Wars is not this giant cash cow that Disney sees it as. And I'm almost certain that Kathleen Kennedy's mindset is the exact same as George Lucas's. She's a filmmaker. She comes from that filmmaking standpoint, that filmmaking perspective.
00:23:40
Speaker
I'd almost be willing to bet that if money weren't an issue and that, you know, because the money has to come from somewhere, the money comes from Disney. If Disney weren't involved and it was just Kathleen Kennedy running the show the way that George Lucas was running the show prior to Disney.
00:23:55
Speaker
we'd be in great hands. We'd be in good fucking hands. Yeah, I'm sure that projects would still come out and they'd be bad. For example, I'm sure that Kathleen Kennedy had a hundred percent confidence in the Acolyte.
00:24:07
Speaker
And even though the Acolyte sucked, it's still something she had confidence in. It's not like she's a perfect person, but something like the Acolyte is much more experimental and creative than fucking Obi-Wan Kenobi. And these Mandoverse projects where just bringing back old, old, old over and over and over again.
00:24:26
Speaker
And you can't tell me that when Disney and all their properties have this same bullshit going on with nostalgia bait with bringing back the same characters, you can't convince me that it's not a Disney problem. You can't convince me that Lucasfilm is the issue here.
00:24:41
Speaker
Star Wars has always been an innovative franchise, the way the bounds of Star Wars are endless, you can pretty much create anything in the franchise, which makes it a timeless franchise because you can kind of put in all these entrance points for different ages, different generations.
00:24:57
Speaker
There's a reason Star Wars has been around for 40 years. And it's almost crazy that a studio like Disney that used to be such a powerhouse of creativity would turn Star Wars into something like this, which is just corporate slop.
00:25:12
Speaker
It's just bullshit. um You know, we're begging for scraps with things like and or and skeleton crew and these shows that want to bring something new to the table, because we know for a fact that most of what's going to be coming out in the future under Disney is things like the Mandalorian and Grogu film, like We really fucking don't want that, or at least i don't want that. And I know many Star Wars fans don't want that. We want Star Wars to be what it was before, a powerhouse of creativity, something that focuses on the real world and lessons from the real world, things that people can take away with and and learn from and sit with.
00:25:53
Speaker
We're just not getting that from Disney, but I don't think it's Kathleen Kennedy's fault. I think it's Disney's. And at the end of the day, we can sit here and say, oh, Kathleen Kennedy is going to be out and it's going to be a new day for Star Wars. We're going to have so much more fun with the franchise. It's going to be great.
Future Star Wars Projects and Talent Management
00:26:11
Speaker
But as long as Disney is in charge of Lucasfilm and funding these projects and making Lucasfilm return their investment, The issue is never going to be solved. And I just pray to God that one day Disney wakes up and realizes that their main goal, making money, is not going to happen when they keep releasing bullshit.
00:26:32
Speaker
And until that day comes, Star Wars is going to continue being bullshit with Kathleen Kennedy involved or not. Anyways, as I mentioned before in this article, Kathleen Kennedy kind of dropped some bombshells about the future of Star Wars, some projects that are coming up.
00:26:47
Speaker
We know that The Mandalorian and Grogu comes out next year. Whoop-dee-doo. I'm sure we're all just so fucking excited for that. But Sean Levy, the director of Deadpool and Wolverine, his film starring Ryan Gosling is actually going to be the next movie after The Mandalorian and Grogu.
00:27:04
Speaker
A few years ago, the idea was that, you know, the the Mandalorian and Grigel wasn't even announced. It was going to be the Rey Star Wars movie and then James Mangold's Dawn of the Jedi movie. And then Dave Filoni was making an heir to the Empire movie.
00:27:18
Speaker
Now we have two movies that weren't even announced at that point coming first. And who knows if the Daisy Ridley Rey movie is still going to happen because it was not mentioned at all in this article. But let me not get ahead of myself. Let's focus on Sean Levy's film starring Ryan Gosling.
00:27:34
Speaker
She said in the beginning of the article, I'm producing the Mandalorian movie right now. I'm also producing Sean Levy's movie, which is after that. So like I said, it's the next movie in the pipeline. She also says Sean's is a standalone Star Wars movie that'll take place post episode nine, maybe five or six years out.
00:27:50
Speaker
This seems to be a big focus of Star Wars in this new era of movies coming out, basically exploring that post episode nine era because Simon Kinberg is also creating the next Star Wars trilogy, what will essentially be episodes 10, 11 and 12.
00:28:09
Speaker
um Kathleen Kennedy said about that project, this is the next iteration, the new saga that moves us into the future. We're absolutely rolling fast and furiously. That has gone exceptionally well and Simon is literally going to script as we speak.
00:28:24
Speaker
We'll see something probably around June. Simon, if you remember, he did some work with us years ago with the animated show, Star Wars Rebels, which was a really wonderful collaborative experience.
00:28:35
Speaker
And then he got very, very busy with the X-Men movies, and then recently became available again, and he segued into this space beautifully. We're really excited about where that's headed.
00:28:45
Speaker
so Same thing here. The movie takes place post episode nine, and they're focusing on bringing in these new characters. Kathleen Kennedy also talked about in this article about possibly bringing in some of the sequel characters, but mainly the focus is new characters. This is the new generation of Star Wars, and we're going to bring in new fans and generations of Star Wars by bringing in movies like this that are an entry point for the franchise where you don't necessarily have to have watched everything before.
00:29:18
Speaker
This is how Star Wars will continue to grow. And seeing Kathleen Kennedy openly talk about that exact process and highlighting it just supports again that she's not the problem. It's Disney that is the issue. But Let's not beat a dead horse.
00:29:34
Speaker
Kathleen Kennedy also confirms production on projects like james James Mangold's Dawn of the Jedi, and even saying that she's still waiting waiting to work with Taika Waititi, the director of Thor Love and Thunder and Thor Ragnarok.
00:29:48
Speaker
So he she says, James, he got delayed a bit because of the Dylan movie and the awards season. You have to accommodate top talent to a certain extent, and quality is so important with what it is we're trying to do.
00:30:00
Speaker
I like to wait for people that I think are passionate and really good to step into Star Wars. That's the thing. Kathleen Kennedy understands that these directors, these talented directors that are willing to work on Star Wars are not a dime a dozen. We've seen over the years that not everybody works out. In fact, I think that Lucasfilm has a higher turnover rate of directors quitting than actually releasing something.
00:30:24
Speaker
It's just not for everybody. So it's important that when you do find somebody, you accommodate their time and you wait for them. She says, I keep waiting for Taika Waititi and he is working with another writer now.
00:30:35
Speaker
He's so busy. I love him. I think if we do ever get a script from Taika, it's going to be fantastic. I already saw a first act that I love, but tying him down, it's tricky. Ignoring the fact that she's talking about Taika Waititi, somebody I think that has fallen off greatly.
00:30:52
Speaker
This is important. She clearly sees something in Taika Waititi, clearly sees the talent. And honestly, i loved Taika Waititi years ago. I just feel like as a filmmaker, as a director, he's not really in it anymore. But if Kathleen Kennedy sees something in him, so be it. She's the fucking film producer with all these Oscar nominations.
00:31:12
Speaker
I absolutely am not qualified to make that decision. Um, but I think what she's saying is important here, you know, stick with the people that are actually talented and willing to make good stories. And I think Lucasfilm will be headed in a good direction. If they keep focusing on things like this, keep focusing on the things that they've been doing, like and or skeleton crew working with these directors that are bringing something new to the table, because that's what George Lucas always wanted.
00:31:41
Speaker
We talked about this two episodes ago on the podcast, but The way to make a good Star Wars project, the way to make a good Star Wars project is to be different, is to be innovative, is to bring something new to the table. George Lucas says so himself.
00:31:54
Speaker
And I think Kathleen Kennedy here is following suit with that. Disney just needs to stop getting in the fucking way of things. Please, Disney, please just lay off. Just let people do what they want to do.
00:32:06
Speaker
Let people make great projects. And I promise you that the money that you want so bad will follow suit because when you're making good projects, people are willing to pay for good projects.
Podcast Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:32:16
Speaker
And that's all I have to say. This was my solo episode of This is the Wayseekers. I hope that I did well. I hope that I wasn't too rambly. I know I was a bit all over the place. I'm sure I'm going to have fun editing this episode.
00:32:28
Speaker
But let me know in the comments what you think about Kathleen Kennedy. Do you agree with me that she's not the issue or do you still think that she is responsible and much more responsible than i am saying she is?
00:32:39
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening. Make sure to follow us on social media at WayseekersPod or wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss out on an episode from us. Until next time, may the force be with you always.