EXCLUSIVE: On a rainy London day in December, not two hours after wrapping Star Wars: Starfighter with director Shawn Levy and a cast headed by Ryan Gosling, Kathleen Kennedy was ready to discuss the long-in-the-works transition of Lucasfilm.
She’s handing the reins to her longtime lieutenants. The Disney division will be run by Chief Creative Officer Dave Filoni and on the business side Lynwen Brennan, a sharp Welsh executive who has been Lucasfilm Executive Vice President and General Manager after 16 years at ILM.
Kennedy has been getting them ready for a couple of years, as she plotted a return to her first love, producing. She will be making a lot of, well, Star Wars films, far in the future as well as teaming on some projects with Frank Marshall. They’ve been married nearly 40 years and fell in love as they presided over Steven Spielberg’s Amblin in its heyday.
Before taking up George Lucas on his offer to run Lucasfilm in 2012 before Disney acquired the company for just over $4 billion in cash and stock, Kennedy already had a hand in what seems like just about every significant blockbuster that has been part of our lives. Her first producing credits came on Poltergeist and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, followed by such films as Schindler’s List, The Sixth Sense, Munich, War of the Worlds, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Lincoln and franchises including Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones and Back to the Future. Including the Star Wars films she produced, that’s more than $11 billion in global grosses.
Since she took the top Lucasfilm post almost 14 years ago, and in that span the company generated five features that continued the saga Lucas began in 1977 or branched into other directions. Those films had global box office of $5.9 billion. The first, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, became the highest grossing film ever in North America, with $936 million stateside, as it became one of only seven films films to cross $2 billion globally. The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, which completed the Skywalker trilogy, grossing $1.3 billion and $1 billion respectively. Rogue One also eclipsed $1 billion, and spawned the Emmy-winning series Andor.
Given the high expectations of a rabid fan base, every development project and creative attachment has gotten high levels of scrutiny, ratcheting up the stress level. But the accomplishments are undeniable. Following a Disney mandate to broaden into television and build Disney+, Lucasfilm series including The Mandalorian, Andor and others have garnered more than 90 Emmy nominations so far. The expansion also included five animated series, the Disneyland and Disney World attractions Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, and the evolution of Lucasfilm Games. Kennedy has been discussing this succession plan for two years with Disney’s Bob Iger and Alan Bergman, and now the succession will finally happen the early part of 2026.
Here, she explains to Deadline why now, and what’s ahead for her.
DEADLINE: Lucasfilm has percolated a lot of future Star Wars films and generated many hours of Disney+ series in recent years. Talk about this combination of Filoni and Brennan and you finally loosening your grip on the reins.
KATHLEEN KENNEDY: 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. She comes out of ILM 16 years as the general manager and then transitioned into being the general manager for Lucasfilm. She has been my key financial partner, my business partner running the company. Dave is the perfect person to transition, but he hadn’t made a movie and I worked very closely with him beginning with Rogue One to get him a feel of how live-action works. His background is animation, as he worked with George on Clone Wars.
He’s very talented and immersed in Star Wars. He and Pablo Hidalgo are like the walking encyclopedias inside the company. They always have the answer when you ask, “Hey, can I do this with a lightsaber?” Or, “What colors were the sabers?” Or anything else you need to know with what has come before. Dave has now spent all of the seasons of Mandalorian working with Jon Favreau, who’s been a great mentor to him. And then he went off and did Ahsoka, which came from some of the stories he was telling in Clone Wars. He was able to create the Season 1 of Ahsoka, and now he’s just finished directing some of Season 2, and writing all the episodes. He finished that in October.
But my point is, we’ve been talking about this for two years.
DEADLINE: Bob Iger retired, was replaced, and then came back…
KENNEDY: 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.
DEADLINE: AI?
KENNEDY: Yes. I am interested in exploring using those tools in responsible ways, and working out the complications around trying to figure out what we’re going to do in terms of protecting artists’ rights. That is vitally important. But at the same time, there’s nothing more exciting than having new tools that can expand on what you’re capable of doing in terms of creating visual language around stories. I’ve had a unique opportunity to be around a lot of that over the years and witness those changes. I genuinely feel like we’re entering that moment again where we’re going to see things we’ve never seen before. I just think that’s really exciting.
DEADLINE: Is there some past breakthrough that compares to the potential game-changing storytelling elements AI could help bring forward?
KENNEDY: It is somewhat comparable to when we did Jurassic Park, because it was a collision of innovation that George was doing already in terms of sound and picture and editing and all the areas of digital innovation that he really spearheaded. And when we had the opportunity to do the first CG shot ever in a movie when John Lassiter was at ILM at the time and we did Young Sherlock Holmes. There was this stained glass window, and the figure in the stained glass window stepped out onto the church floor. A lot of people don’t remember that that was in fact the first CG shot.
‘Jurassic Park’
Universal/courtesy Everett Collection
It was absolutely thrilling. And what emanated after that was three years of discussion and R&D to get to the point where we could create Jurassic Park. I watched that whole evolution and was a part of seeing that change in the way we made big special effects movies. I’m not saying that it impacts every single story you’re going to tell in cinema, but certainly for big tentpole stories where you’re trying to world-build and create images people haven’t seen before, I really believe this technology is going to do that.
DEADLINE: You’ve just wrapped the sixth film in the Star Wars universe. Is Starfighter meant to be an ongoing theatrical series?
KENNEDY: It was envisioned as a single film. Shawn Levy just made the experience so pleasant for everybody, and we found this 14-year-old kid out of Ireland who had virtually no experience. That’s always risky, hanging a story so much on a child actor. You’re not exactly sure how comfortable they’re going to be. Flynn Gray turned out to be such a special kid.
When you cast kids, a lot of it becomes about the parents. He has great parents and got lucky there, too.
Not only was he there with Ryan Gosling; this movie is structured in a way that he had kind of a new actor coming in every few weeks that he was one-on-one with. Matt Smith, Amy Adams, Aaron Pierre. And each one, it was so great to watch him because he would just get so excited by the actors he got to work with. It was like he was in the best university you could possibly be in.
(L-R) Ryan Gosling and Flynn Gray on the set of ‘Star Wars: Starfighter’
Shawn Levy via Instagram
DEADLINE: We are all going to throttle down at some point. Aside from the potential of AI, what excites you in a moment of exceptional disruption?
KENNEDY: There is a beauty in being at the stage of my career where you pretty much know what you’re good at and what you really want to do. And that’s an incredibly satisfying feeling. I never envisioned that I would ever be an executive, but I don’t regret any of that. I find it fascinating to have now seen the business from all sides. I have a much deeper understanding for how decisions get made and why, and when things seem irrational or whatever, you understand what’s leading to that. But my love is making movies. I just love making things.
DEADLINE: What do you most love about it?
KENNEDY: I love the community. I love the shared experience. I love the collaboration. It’s just incredibly rewarding. You’re in the present all the time. I think when you’re an executive, you’re not. You feel like you’re making things, and then all anybody wants to do is talk about what you’re doing next, and what’s up ahead. Or you’re stewing in what didn’t work that’s behind you, and you’re never really in the present.
What I love about making movies is you’re just in it, in the moment, and every decision you make in that moment will affect everything. I love the challenge of that, the excitement, the urgency of that. It’s just kind of thrilling all the time.
DEADLINE: One of your first producing credits came on E.T. That must have been a crazy film to make…
KENNEDY: It was, but don’t forget, Mike, in the context of what we think about today, that was a $10 million movie. It was a little movie. Today, that would be considered very much an independent film. And then it just took off, in a time when we used to have celebrations a year into release. Theater owners wanted to have a cake and a big celebration because the movie had run for a year. And those days are, needless to say, long gone. E.T. was the little engine that could. It didn’t open huge; it just stayed consistent and steady, and just went on to be one of the biggest movies of all time.
DEADLINE: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Poltergeist, Back to the Future, Jurassic, Schindler’s List, Twister, The Sixth Sense. Big hits, each with storytelling and technical complexity. You certainly seem like you know what you’re doing…
KENNEDY: I certainly feel like I know what I’m doing by now, but I also just love it. The adage that you’ll never work a day in your life if you love what you’re doing? I always feel that. Most of the time, I’m really enjoying what I’m doing, mainly because of the people, because there’s just something very fun about being involved with a group of people that you admire and like and want to be with, and you’re all trying to make the best possible story you can. That’s incredibly satisfying. I feel very, very fortunate that I’ve been able to make a living doing this. It’s just like tonight, when Shawn Levy was making his eloquent wrap speech, reminding me that he flew to London 10 years ago on his own dime to sit down with me and tell me what Star Wars meant to him and how much he wanted to do a Star Wars movie. And in 2022, I called him up and said, let’s go. Let’s figure out what that movie might be. And here we are. He got to realize his dream, and the process along the way was just a blast. What’s better than that?
DEADLINE: So what about the question I asked earlier. Sounds like Shawn would be a willing returnee, and you’ve made a discovery with this kid from Ireland. Are we going to watch him grow up in an arc of pictures?
KENNEDY: We could, but this was designed as a real stand-alone. We have the Mandalorian movie with Jon Favreau coming next, which also was great and a completely different Star Wars movie. That comes out in May. And as soon as I get back into town, I’m sitting down with Jon and looking at that. The whole time I’ve been shooting Starfighter, we’ve been working on effects that are going into that movie. We finished shooting in November. We’ve had a long post on that. And so I’ll oversee a lot of those effect shots cut into Jon’s movie, and I’ll get myself re-immersed and get that finished. With Shawn’s movie, this could go on, but it’s not our intention right now. We really made the movie as a stand-alone story. But you cannot ignore the fact that this young actor is so good. I will be very surprised if he doesn’t go on and we don’t try to see if there might be future stories. But it was kind of nice not going into this and not having to think that way. We could just make a movie and tell a story.
‘Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu’
Lucasfilm
DEADLINE: What have been the highs and lows or running a company built on such beloved IP?
KENNEDY: The highs include realizing how many people love Star Wars. The majority of people, and certainly the people that I run into, and people outside the business, they love Star Wars. They love the movies, they might love all the shows, they might love some of the shows. But when I came into this, I realized a few things. We had walked in at a moment when there hadn’t been any movies for 10 years or more, but there was still the memory of the greatest series of movies in cinema history. So you’re walking into something that has enormous expectations. Yet at the same time, you know that you’ve got to find new characters and you have to expand the galaxy, and you need to think about who the new audience is. That’s what I feel that I did, and that’s what I feel all the people that I’ve worked with over this last decade did. The highs include bringing in a new audience. I think we did find new characters. We continue to find new characters.
DEADLINE: The lows?
KENNEDY: The lows are that you’ve got a very, very small percentage of the fan base that has enormous expectations and basically they want to continue to see pretty much the same thing. And if you’re not going to do that, then you know going in that you’re going to disappoint them. I’m not sure there’s anything you can do about that, because you can’t please everybody. All you can do is try to tell good stories and try to stick to the essence of what George created. He embedded incredible values into Star Wars and what it has to say. The whole idea of hope and fun and entertainment in what he’s done over all these years, that’s what I tried to preserve. And I wouldn’t do that any differently and I wouldn’t change anything that we’ve done over the years. I understand why some people may like certain things more than others, but that’s not going to change why I decided to do certain things and why I decided to work with the people that we worked with.
George Lucas and Kathleen Kennedy at the Producers Guild Awards in 2022
Kevin Winter/Getty Images
I think everybody that came into the Star Wars space, they love Star Wars, and that was first and foremost important. You want to have people coming into Star Wars, and wanting to tell stories and wanting to make movies and wanting to create television shows that you respect and care about. Jon Favreau is completely different than Tony Gilroy, and yet they’re both incredibly talented storytellers. I found it thrilling to support each one of them in trying to tell the stories they wanted to tell.
That’s what I think I do well, and that’s what I like to do and want to continue to do. And hopefully that took Star Wars into the next step. We’ll see in the long run, but it feels like it did. I feel like we expanded the universe, we brought new audiences in. And I think that’s the most difficult thing to do with franchises in general. But especially with something like Star Wars, where George just created something that became a part of everybody’s childhood. Every single filmmaker that walks in and wants to work on Star Wars, the first thing they say to me, the first thing I hear is, “Let me tell you about when I went to see Star Wars for the first time with my dad.”
DEADLINE: Back when JJ Abrams started the third cycle of Star Wars films, I asked a lot of filmmakers how that very first film affected them. My favorite reaction came from Ridley Scott, when I interviewed him for the film The Martian. He looked at me hard, and he goes, “Well, this is what happened.” And he told this great story about being with David Putnam, and they were working on Tristan & Isolde as his next film, and took a break to go see this movie everyone was talking about. Ridley said he found himself getting more and more pissed while he was watching it. Not because he didn’t like George or his movie, but because he didn’t think of it first. As he exited the theater with Putnam, he turned to the producer and said, I think I’m not going to be able to do this movie with you. I’ve got to go to space. That led him to Alien.
You always hear how a Bruce Springsteen or other musicians watched Elvis Presley or The Beatles in those early days of television, and knew what they wanted to do with their lives. George did a version of that with his first trilogy. How did it change you?
KENNEDY: I didn’t realize that about Ridley. That’s fantastic. So many of us can talk about the moment that they saw Star Wars. It changed so many people in the movie business, and the way you thought about what you wanted to do because of what we were just talking about. The new tools and innovation and how we tell stories and how you create imagery. He created a world in a way that 10 years before you couldn’t have done. And everybody was blown away by seeing something they’d never seen before.
DEADLINE: It’s always great when a movie makes us feel that way. I felt it on Oppenheimer, and more recently on One Battle After Another, and especially Sinners. The audacity of Ryan Coogler to veer from that sultry blues number in that club, to imagery of people past and present from Africa to Compton where you could see the connective tissue and historical influences past and present to that form of music. Coogler went into the genre sandbox and turned it completely on its ear, and made it relevant to everybody as they thought about their own tribal roots and origin stories. I don’t think I’d ever seen that in a movie quite like he did it. I imagine you’d give your eye teeth to have a guy like that see where he could make a mark in the Star Wars universe?
KENNEDY: Oh, trust me, Mike, this is a big part of what I’ve tried to do. Sit with the people that I would love to see step into this space and create something that we’ve never seen before. But Star Wars isn’t really Ryan’s thing. The trickiest thing is to find a filmmaker and say, “You can step into this space and you can still be you.”
Tony Gilroy, I knew him well from The Bourne Identity movies. He didn’t see himself in the Star Wars universe. I said, “Okay, let’s just talk this through.” And he came in on Rogue One and helped us and then he slowly started to get hooked. By the time we were talking about Andor, he found a way in because he realized there was something important he had to say and he could do it inside Star Wars, and that started to become very exciting for him. It’s thrilling to try and find that. I’ve had early conversations with David Fincher. With Vince Gilligan for TV. I have sat down with Alex Garland, and others where the minute you say their name, you go, “Oh, that might be an interesting Star Wars.”
But not everybody is going to just go, “Oh yeah, great. I’m going to drop everything and spend the next three to five years trying to figure this out.” That’s the other thing to consider. These are really complicated, difficult movies to make, far more than I think people give them credit for. People have to set their lives aside for years.
DEADLINE: How many years, on average?
KENNEDY: Three to five, from the time you start developing and then what’s involved in concept work and creation.
DEADLINE: Let’s get to what the fans are eager to know. The progress on films and series by filmmakers who’ve committed to putting in that three to five years. Rian Johnson, James Mangold, Simon Kimberg, Taika Waititi. Where are all their projects at?
KENNEDY: I’ve got to tread a bit carefully here. Jim Mangold and Beau Willimon wrote an incredible script, but it is definitely breaking the mold and it’s on hold. Taika has turned in a script that I think is hilarious and great. It’s not just my decision, especially when I’ve got a foot out the door. Donald Glover has turned in a script. And as you have read, Steve Soderbergh and Adam Driver turned in a script written by Scott Burns. It was just great. Anything’s a possibility if somebody’s willing to take a risk.
I remember when I came into this job, the first thing Bob Iger said to me was, “Be bold.” I’ve always liked that because I think you have to be bold and you have to be willing to take risks with people and with ideas. Otherwise you are just doing the same thing. Right now we’re in an era where companies are so risk-averse, and I get it. I hear all the conversations. They’ve got Wall Street to please, and I get it, but I also believe that that’s what contributes to things disappearing, ultimately. I just think you have to take those chances.
Everything I just reeled off to you is taking a bit of a chance because none of those filmmakers are just walking in trying to do same old, same old. I’m excited by that, but the studio’s nervous about that, and that’s kind of where it sits at the moment.
DEADLINE: What about Rian Johnson returning? After Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi grossed $1.3 billion globally, we expected him to return.
KENNEDY: Once he made the Netflix deal and went off to start doing the Knives Out films, that has occupied a huge amount of his time. That’s the other thing that happens here. After Shawn and I started talking about Star Wars, Stranger Things kicks in and he was completely consumed for a while by that. That’s what happened with Rian. And then I do believe he got spooked by the online negativity. I think Rian made one of the best Star Wars movies. He’s a brilliant filmmaker and he got spooked. This is the rough part. When people come into this space, I have every filmmaker and actors say to me, “What’s going to happen?” They’re a little scared.
‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’
Lucasfilm Ltd. /Courtesy Everett Collection
DEADLINE: You’ve developed a thicker skin no doubt. You can’t have been used to all the criticism when you were producing all these movies with Frank Marshall for Steven Spielberg. What do you say to ease the apprehension of these newcomers to the Star Wars universe? Every time you release another movie or series, it’s like, fire in the hole!
KENNEDY: I’m honest, especially with the women that come into this space because they unfairly get targeted. I don’t try to sugarcoat it. And I emphasize that it’s a very small group of people, with loud megaphones. I truly do not believe that it’s the majority of the fans. And I think we’re also in this weird world of where bots can affect things. You have to develop a tough skin. That is exactly right. That’s what you have to do. You can’t make it go away.
All we can do is put our heads down and do the work and believe that we’re doing the best we can, telling the best story we can. And if somebody gets really nervous about it and doesn’t want to do it, I say, then don’t do it because I can’t tell you this won’t happen.
DEADLINE: How goes the project that Simon Kinberg is writing and producing?
KENNEDY: He’s working right now. He wrote something that we read in August, and it was very good, but not there. We’ve pretty much upended the story, and then spent a great deal of time on the treatment, which he finished literally about four weeks ago. And it’s a very detailed treatment, like 70 pages. And so he is expected to give us something in March.
DEADLINE: Are there any other Star Wars films or spinoffs the fan base will never forgive me for overlooking?
KENNEDY: We’ve talked about this new trilogy and then the things that you’ve mentioned. Mangold’s is really on the back burner as is Soderbergh’s. I think the ones by Taika and Donald are still somewhat alive. That’s going to really be up to the new team to figure out. Dave, I know that Dave and Lynwen are very much on board with what Simon’s doing, and that would be a new trilogy. In the timeline of things, that takes you well into 2030 plus. So that’s really what’s up next.
DEADLINE: Which of these will you produce?
KENNEDY: 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.
DEADLINE: It seems much better than many situations where a leader steps away after a long run, and those remaining turn it into a Game of Thrones thing. Now, clearly your marriage has endured as you and Frank Marshall pursued your passions. You’ll do more together, and be in each other’s faces a lot more. Any concerns?
KENNEDY: People have asked us that over the years. I think we avoided that because we became really, really good friends before we ever got married, and we worked together right from the beginning. So what we have is this kind of complimentary way of working, it’s the way we raised our kids and the way we do almost anything. Which is, okay, great. You do that. I’ll do that. We always tried to divide and conquer, and I think we respect each other enough and enjoy each other, and we’ve shared a lot of experiences. By now, being together is just comfortable, after 39 years of marriage. We were together nine years before we got married.
DEADLINE: As one whose marriage passed 40 years, I think if you get the casting right at the beginning, all that is required to hit big numbers is to not die. So how quickly will your next chapter unfold?
KENNEDY: I’m not sure. There are a lot of people that I’ve been talking to and things I’m kicking around, but I’ve been careful because I’m exclusive to the company right now. So I haven’t been able to just head out and freely talk about what I may do, but I’m very open to that in the new year, let’s put it that way.
DEADLINE: Sounds like your challenge won’t be keeping busy but managing the fact you’re a finite resource. George Lucas has certainly found new purpose with his Museum of Narrative Art.
KENNEDY: Frank and I just had dinner with George weeks ago when he came over to London. He’s so engaged. When George asked me to do this job, I felt an incredible responsibility to him more than even Star Wars and I feel really gratified that he’s happy with where things are. And I think he felt relieved that he sold the company and that we’ve cared so much about being the guardians, the caretakers of it. Building this museum, which is really representative of his legacy, has just put him in a really good place. He’s settled in, realizing that what he accomplished and what he contributed to the film industry has been recognized in such an amazing way and always will be.
DEADLINE: There is so much scrutiny on all things Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Some work better than others, but they all seem to gross big numbers. Is there any you wish you had back and maybe you could have done better with more time, or that you let go of something you’d love to have seen get made and released?
KENNEDY: No, I don’t really have any regrets. Well, maybe a bit of regret about Solo: A Star Wars Story. I brought Larry Kasdan in on, and we were so excited about that idea. And then when you’re into something and you realize fundamentally, conceptually, you cannot replace Han Solo, at least right now.
DEADLINE: Harrison Ford is a hard act to follow…
KENNEDY: As wonderful as Alden Ehrenreich was, and he really was good, and is a wonderful actor, we put him in an impossible situation. And once you’re in it and once you’re committed, you’ve got to carry on. I think I have a bit of regret about that, but not about the moviemaking and filmmaking. I don’t have regrets about that. I just think that conceptually, we did it too soon.
DEADLINE: At the same time, many felt that Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was an example of where Harrison Ford stayed a little too long at the dance…
KENNEDY: No, no. I have no regrets about that because Harrison wanted to do that more than anything. He did not want Indy to end with the fourth movie. He wanted a chance at another, and we did that for him. I think that was the right thing to do. He wanted to do that movie. I don’t think Indy will ever be done, but I don’t think anybody is interested right now in exploring it. But these are timeless movies, and Indy will never be done.
DEADLINE: Sounds like you are not ruling out another film with the whip and the fedora…
KENNEDY: You never know. But we are all still here, Steven and Frank and I, and Harrison and George. So we get to say whether there’s going to be any more, or not.
