Ooh … the girls are fighting! Puck and Deadline, two sites that pride themselves on being able to publish insider information before the traditional trades get to it, can’t seem to agree on whether or not the current president of Lucasfilm who runs point on Star Wars, Kathleen Kennedy, is leaving the role. “Deadline’s Mike Fleming, who never saw a movie producer’s anal cavity he couldn’t burrow inside, did a hilariously sycophantic interview with Kathleen Kennedy after I broke the news on Monday that the Lucasfilm president will announce her exit by the end of the year,” Puck’s Matt Belloni wrote in his February 28 newsletter. “It was … quite something.”
Puck published the news that Kennedy, 72, was planning to step down as president of LucasFilm on February 24. Belloni has long criticized Kennedy both in print and on his podcast The Town, implying she’s bungling the Star Wars franchise by not releasing a film since 2019. “Ask a top creator about their experience working with Lucasfilm, and you’ll likely get an earful: unclear direction, paralyzed decision-making, extreme aversion to creative risks yet also slavish devotion to a fan base that has become increasingly toxic,” he wrote in his report on Kennedy’s departure.
Three days later, Mike Fleming Jr. at Deadline published an interview with Kennedy and used the intro to fire back at Belloni, even as it mostly just confirmed Puck’s reporting. “Belloni for years has been beating on Kennedy like she owes him money, and this week he reported Kennedy was retiring,” he wrote. Kennedy, in the interview, directly says that while she will “never retire from movies,” she has “been talking for quite some time with both Bob [Iger] and Alan [Bergman] about what eventual succession might look like.”
“We’ll probably make an announcement months or a year out, and I have every intention of sticking around to help that person be successful,” she added. So, you agree, Kathleen Kennedy is stepping down as Lucasfilm president?