The Complicated Legacy of Kathleen Kennedy

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After 14 years as George Lucas’s successor as president of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy is officially stepping down as president and passing the reins to Dave Filoni and Lynwen Brennan. During her 14 years as president, Kennedy oversaw the greenlighting of many movies and shows. To some fans, she is seen as the savior of Star Wars. To other fans, she is seen as the destroyer of Star Wars. The truth is Kathleen Kennedy’s legacy is a complicated one.

At the time George Lucas made Kathleen Kennedy his successor, it was seen as a positive. Fans were still sour on the Prequel Trilogy, and for fans who knew about Kennedy’s resume, they thought it was a good choice. Kennedy was a producer on all the Indiana Jones movies and various Steven Spielberg movies like Jurassic Park. While she never produced any of the first six Star Wars movies, Lucas picked her, citing her decades of experience as a producer. It was October 30, 2012, when it was made official, along with Disney acquiring Lucasfilm and a seventh Star Wars movie coming out in 2015 that would be a sequel to Star Wars: Episode VI-Return of the Jedi. This was also after the first MCU movie distributed by Disney, The Avengers, came out and broke box-office records and got universal acclaim. If Marvel under Disney could be great, so can Star Wars, right?

Kathleen Kennedy’s era as president started off strong. Star Wars: Episode VII-The Force Awakens was a highly anticipated movie with the trailers breaking records. Fans were excited to get a new Star Wars movie that would bring back Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford as Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, and Han Solo. JJ Abrams, who recently brought Star Trek back to the big screen for Paramount, was directing it. When The Force Awakens came out on December 15, 2015, it broke box-office records. For a few years, it was the third-highest-grossing movie of all time until Avengers: Infinity War came out in 2018 and surpassed it. As of January 2026, The Force Awakens is the sixth-highest-grossing movie of all time.

Fans and critics praised the movie despite some criticisms of the plot being similar to Star Wars: Episode IV-A New Hope. There was excitement in seeing Han Solo and Leia return, to meet new characters like Finn and Rey, who had potential, and an antagonist in Kylo Ren, with the rage the Dark Side wanted. The cinematography and visuals were praised, and for fans who disliked the prequels, they felt satisfied.  George Lucas, though, felt The Force Awakens wasn’t unique with a lack of visual and technical leaps. With the success and praise of The Force Awakens, it seemed like Star Wars was in good hands.

However, the approach to Star Wars releases would change from how Lucasfilm used to do it. Fans were used to a new Star Wars movie coming out every 3 years. In 2016, the Star Wars anthology movie Rogue One: A Star Wars Story would come out. 2017 would have Star Wars: Episode VIII-The Last Jedi come out. 2018 would have Solo: A Star Wars Story come out, and 2019 would have Star Wars: Episode IX-The Rise of Skywalker. These movies would each have controversy from filming to their releases.

Rogue One was a big box-office win, making over $1 billion, being the second highest-grossing movie of 2016 behind Captain America: Civil War, and got good reviews. Out of the Disney Star Wars movies, Rogue One seems to be the movie that aged well and is held in high regard by the fans. It was also a movie that went through extensive reshoots and rewrites, including the addition of the hallway lightsaber scene with Darth Vader. However, shortly after Rogue One’s release, Carrie Fisher passed away. She had already completed her scenes for The Last Jedi.

The Last Jedi would change how people felt about this new era of Star Wars and Kathleen Kennedy. Around the time The Last Jedi was released, Mark Hamill talked about how he disagreed with director Rian Johnson’s handling of Luke Skywalker. While The Last Jedi was another big box office success, becoming the highest-grossing movie of 2017. And critics seemed to love it, but fans were torn. Some fans loved the movie. Some fans hated it. The criticisms were towards how characters were handled, especially Luke Skywalker, Rian Johnson undoing what Abrams set up in The Force Awakens, the humor, the reveal of Rey’s parentage, and, for some fans, it was deemed too progressive even for a Star Wars movie, despite Star Wars always seeming to be a progressive series. Hundreds of videos on YouTube from various channels would come out slamming The Last Jedi, Rian Johnson, and Kathleen Kennedy. Despite the criticisms directed at Johnson, Kennedy announced that the director would get his own Star Wars trilogy down the road. However, in 2025, it was announced that the project was dead.

Things would only get worse with Solo: A Star Wars Story. Originally directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, they were fired halfway through filming due to creative differences with Lucasfilm, and Ron Howard was brought in to finish it. He ended up reshooting 70% of the film. Solo had gotten decent reviews, with the cast getting the most praise, but it was the first Star Wars movie to be a box office bomb, only making $393 million worldwide. Perhaps it was due to the movie's release less than a year after The Last Jedi, and the subsequent protests from Star Wars fans, or it was due to the concurrent release of Avengers: Infinity War and Deadpool 2, which dominated the box office around the same time as Solo. Either way, Solo’s bad box office pushed Lucasfilm to cancel or put on hold other anthology movies. Some of the canceled movies, like the Obi-Wan Kenobi movie, would later morph into the Disney+ show Obi-Wan Kenobi. This would be seen as a major failure for Kathleen Kennedy and would turn into a common trend where she planned various movies, but they would be put on hold, canceled, or turned into streaming shows.

Then came The Rise of Skywalker. Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow was originally going to direct it, but left in 2017 due to creative differences with Kathleen Kennedy. J. J Abrams would return to direct, but was dealing with a ton of challenges, ranging from fixing the things fans were upset about with The Last Jedi, how to handle Leia’s role with Carrie Fisher gone, and how to bring back Star Wars antagonist Palpatine. The Rise of Skywalker was released on December 20, 2019, and got a mixed response with fans and critics criticizing Rey becoming a Palpatine, how Sidious returned, how the new characters felt wasted, and how disappointing the conclusion to the Skywalker Saga was. Many fans and critics consider this to be the weakest Star Wars movie. Most of the new characters were mocked, and fans didn’t care about them. They felt legacy characters like Luke and Leia were disrespected. Unlike The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, The Rise of Skywalker wasn’t the highest-grossing movie of the year as Avengers: Endgame took the top spot. In fact, The Rise of Skywalker was seventh in the 2019 worldwide box office, losing to even the R-rated movie Joker.

Around this time, Disney+ finally launched, and The Mandalorian was released, starring Pedro Pascal as the first-ever live-action Star Wars show. Unlike The Rise of Skywalker, The Mandalorian was loved by fans and critics. New characters Din Djarin and Grogu, who at first was called Baby Yoda, became fan favorites. For a couple of years, it looked like the future of Star Wars could be on Disney+ as The Mandalorian continued with its second season in 2020, and Star Wars: The Clone Wars finally concluded the same year. However, it wouldn’t last. In early 2021, Lucasfilm fired The Mandalorian actress Gina Carano for posts on social media comparing American Conservatives to Jews who lived in Nazi Germany, as well as tweets mocking the use of face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic and spreading misinformation on the 2020 election. Some fans were outraged and supported Carano. The Book of Boba Fett was released in late 2021 and got mixed reviews as the show turned its focus away from Boba Fett and focused more on Din Djarin and his reunion with Grogu.

Other shows either got praised or criticized. Some shows like Andor were loved, while shows like The Acolyte were review-bombed and hated. Fans would bring up how The Acolyte was created by Leslie Headland, who was a personal assistant to disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein. Fans also claimed Headland would inject some kind of agenda that was deemed too woke for some fans. Kennedy would speak out and come to Headland’s defense. The show would later be canceled. Some people enjoyed the other shows like Obi-Wan Kenobi, but also had fair criticisms. Some fans felt that too many shows were coming out and were either getting Star Wars fatigue or preferred seeing Star Wars back on the big screen.

In 2023, more Star Wars movies would be announced, including a movie focused on Rey building a new Jedi Order, a Dawn of the Jedi Movie set in the Old Republic directed by James Mangold, and a movie set in the New Republic era connecting shows like Ahsoka and The Mandalorian by Dave Filoni. As of 2026, none of these movies has been made. Other movies Lucasfilm had interest in included The Hunt for Ben Solo, which would focus on bringing back Ben Solo after the events of The Rise of Skywalker, but Disney shelved it. Rogue Squadron, which will be directed by Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins, was on and off, but as of 2024, Jenkins is still attached to direct it. In early 2024, a new Star Wars movie called The Mandalorian and Grogu, directed by Jon Favreau, was announced. The movie is completed and is scheduled to come out on May 22, 2026. Star Wars: Starfighters, directed by Shawn Levy, is set to be released in 2027.

During Kennedy’s run as president, the fifth and final Indiana Jones movie, called Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, was released, as well as a new series on Disney+ called Willow, which was a sequel to the 1988 Lucasfilm movie Willow. Dial of Destiny, despite positive reviews, bombed and was one of the most expensive movies ever made, and Willow was canceled after a season and eventually removed from Disney+.

Overall, Kathleen Kennedy’s tenure is one of successes and failures. Four of the five Star Wars movies that have come out during her run made at least $1 billion worldwide. She greenlit various Star Wars shows. At the same time, movies like Solo and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny with big budgets were bombs at the box office. Some directors, like Rian Johnson, were given more creative control than others, and some directors left because of their creative differences. While some of the shows found success, others were canceled. Many movies were announced, but canceled. Some haven’t been officially canceled, but seem to be on hold at the very least, and it’s unknown if Dave Filoni and Lynwen Brennan will cancel them down the road. The several announcements and only a few projects happening are too similar to how WB handled DC movies before James Gunn and Peter Safran came in. Fans believed Kennedy was more interested in interjecting her own politics into Star Wars projects, forgetting that George Lucas used to do the same thing himself. The fandom was forever changed during her time, and it could take years for it to move on.

Do you think Kathleen Kennedy did a good job or a bad job? Let us know in the comments below.