Is Kathleen Kennedy finally being fired?

The rumors are flying over the world wide web that Kathleen Kennedy may be stepping down as head of LucasFilm as early as September. According to Movie Web:

We have to caution right off the bat that this isn’t coming from any official sources, so it should be taken with a massive grain of salt. That said, there are rumors emerging that Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy may be stepping down in September. If there is any validity to this at all, it would represent a major shift not just for Kennedy, but for one of the biggest franchises on the planet.

Kennedy has been infamously divisive, and there has been much criticism over her cynical exploitation of identity politics to simultaneously pander to every possible demographic in an effort to fill as many movie theaters seats as possible, and shield the movies made under her watch from public criticism. As well, communication, or rather, lack thereof, has been a serious problem:

While the Star Wars franchise was successfully relaunched under her watch and the four movies released since Disney purchased Lucasfilm have grossed north of $4.5 billion at the box office, there have been issues. Namely, Josh Trank (Boba Fett), Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Solo) and Colin Trevorrow (Star Wars 9) have all been hired and fired on her watch. Kennedy has clearly had issues communicating with directors. The Last Jedi sailed smoothly under Rian Johnson, but that wound up being the most divisive movie in the new batch so far.

This, again, is all speculation because as of this writing Kennedy’s departure from LucasFilm is only a rumor and may ultimately prove untrue. But as I wrote in my last entry, under her watch Star Wars has gone from a record-breaking-and-making profit-generating property, to one that alienates audiences and loses money. You don’t go from one of the biggest relaunches of a franchise in movie history to seriously hurting the company’s bottom line just three years later, and not receive a pink slip. Profits have diminished to the point that it is now extremely difficult to imagine Disney’s plans for exploiting Star Wars continue in present form. Something has to change, and Disney C.E.O. Bob Iger won’t take the fall for Kennedy because none of Disney’s other divisions are experiencing these problems, only LucasFilm, and she’s the one in charge.

I’m going to engage in a bit of baseless speculation here, because right now this is only a rumor and it has yet to be confirmed publicly by Disney. I suspect that Iger has made his decision to replace Kennedy, and the company is trying to prolong the process, both to allow enough time to find a suitable replacement and to save face so that she is not humiliated as badly as she otherwise would be. No one wants to be the one who fired Kathleen Kennedy, who despite her reckless, arrogant incompetence still has a fair amount of pull in Hollywood. Also, firing her publicly would be a tacit admission that Disney screwed up by putting her in charge of LucasFilm in the first place—elites have a curious pathological aversion to admitting error.

Assuming the rumors are true and Kennedy is out at LucasFilm come September, the big question is, who would replace her? Disney needs someone like Marvel’s Kevin Feige, who over ten years has guided the company’s Cinematic Universe to great success. He has the vision and discipline to right the ship if he were to move from Marvel Studios to LucasFilm, but the drawback is that absent his presence, Marvel movies may end up faltering. Gale Anne Hurd, James Cameron’s longtime producer, is another potential replacement, especially with The Walking Dead winding down, but does she want the thankless task of coming in to clean up the mess Kennedy has made of Star Wars, one that might actually be impossible given the level of damage?

So we’ll see if the rumor prove true or not. If it is, and I certainly hope so, it’ll be interesting to see what spin Disney tries to put on it and who will be chosen to take over from Kennedy. Whoever it is will have to be able to alleviate investors’ concerns and restore their confidence in the franchise. That’s a tall order at this point, so it’s important that Iger pick the right person. Otherwise, there likely won’t be another movie after Episode IX and it’ll be at least another generation before we see another attempt to resurrect Star Wars.