Kathleen Kennedy Reportedly Leaving Lucasfilm But Can New Leadership Save ‘Star Wars’?

One of the most controversial figures in modern Star Wars could be bowing out by the end of 2025 according to a new report.

According to the report from Puck a source with knowledge of Kennedy’s plans says she intends to retire once her current contract ends, though another anonymous source rebuked these claims as “pure speculation.”

Kennedy joined Lucasfilm in 2012, co-chairing the company alongside George Lucas, and became president when Disney acquired the company for $4 billion shortly thereafter. Her tenure has been a mixed success.

Kennedy’s accomplishments include the excellent Disney+ live-action Star Wars shows The Mandalorian and Andor and some big box office wins but the bigger picture has been one of disarray, as Star Wars slides further and further into cultural and commercial irrelevance. The last two Disney+ Star Wars series were unmitigated failures. Both The Acolyte and Skeleton Crew had the worst viewership numbers of the entire franchise. While other Star Wars Disney+ offerings were more successful, it’s hard to look at Obi-Wan or The Book Of Boba Fett as anything but lackluster TV shows that failed to capture the magic and imagination of the Star Wars legacy.

Meanwhile, the House of Mouse has struggled to find lasting success on the big screen with what ought to have been a slam dunk for Disney rivaling its success with the MCU. While the sequel trilogy saw big box office numbers (The Force Awakens remains the top-grossing film in US box-office history at $936 million domestic / $2 billion globally) it also managed to divide the fanbase. The fact that a coherent story and direction for the three sequel movies wasn’t conceived prior to filming remains one of modern cinema’s most egregious unforced errors.

Both Solo: A Star Wars Story and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny were huge box office failures. Solo was the first Star Wars film to actually lose money. It’s been over five years since the release of The Rise Of Skywalker and we have yet to see another Star Wars film hit theaters, though many projects have been announced. Some of these remain on the table from directors like James Mangold and Taika Waititi, while others from Patty Jenkins, Rian Johnson and the creators of Game Of Thrones, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, will never see the light of day.

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If she does retire, Kennedy leaves behind a mixed legacy at best. That’s in keeping with Lucasfilm tradition. Lucas himself struggled to make use of the Star Wars brand after the original trilogy. The prequels were commercially successful, but for many fans (myself included) they were a massive disappointment. Worse, Lucas’s edits to the original trilogy have left them all but unwatchable. Whether Star Wars will ever bounce back as the cultural powerhouse it once was remains a giant question mark. Only one film in a galaxy far, far away has anything like a release window, with The Mandalorian & Grogu from director Jon Favreau set to hit theaters in 2026.

I’d love to see Disney and Lucasfilm right the Star Wars ship, but at this point it’s impossible to say whether even a change in leadership could bring back old fans, let alone win over a younger generation in any meaningful way.

Thankfully, we have Season 2 of Andor coming out in just a few weeks. Somehow, amidst all this disappointment and mediocrity, Lucasfilm managed to give us a genuine masterpiece. You can watch the Season 2 trailer right here.