Kathleen Kennedy Reflects on the SOLO Director Firing and Her Complicated Relationship With STAR WARS Fans

Running Lucasfilm means dealing with one of the most passionate and opinionated fanbases on the planet, and former studio president Kathleen Kennedy has some thoughts about what that experience was like.

Kennedy stepped down from Lucasfilm in January, closing the book on a lengthy run overseeing Star Wars through a major expansion that included a new movie trilogy, spinoff films, and a wave of Disney+ shows.

Her tenure delivered some big successes, but it also came with plenty of controversy, particularly when it came to creative disagreements and filmmakers leaving projects.

In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Kennedy reflected on her relationship with Star Wars fans and the difficulty of trying to satisfy an audience that has spent decades forming very specific ideas about what the franchise should be.

“Well, I think that that’s the challenge that all franchises [face], certainly something that’s been around now for 50 years. You’ve got people where this means a lot to them. But at the same time, the challenge is to try to create something new, something original. So finding that balance is really the toughest thing.”

That balance became one of the defining issues of Kennedy’s Lucasfilm era. The studio had to keep longtime fans invested while expanding Star Wars for new audiences, and not every decision landed.

The sheer amount of Star Wars content released for Disney+ also eventually raised questions about whether the franchise had been spread too thin.

Kennedy acknowledged that not everything worked, while making it clear that she remains proud of what Lucasfilm produced during her time running the studio.

“I mean, I don’t think you can do anything in terms of the movie business where every single thing is going to be a perfect hit,” Kennedy said. “I think you learn things, I always like learning things… But I’m always proud of the work that’s been done.”

Of course, one of the more fascinating chapters of her tenure involved the filmmakers who parted ways with Lucasfilm.

Gareth Edwards directed Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which went through significant additional work before release. Then came the much more public split with Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who were removed from Solo: A Star Wars Story after production was already underway.

When Kennedy was asked about those situations, she pushed back on the idea that firing filmmakers was something she routinely did herself.

“Well, that really only happened once, thank god… I wasn’t required to do that. There are many complicated situations that develop that certainly reach a point where you have to make a difficult decision like that.”

Kennedy also pointed to her long career producing movies with a huge range of filmmakers as evidence that the Lord and Miller situation was an unusual one.

“Certainly my track record shows that I’ve worked with a lot of different directors, I’ve made many kinds of movies, and I’ve never been in a situation like that.”

There’s more context to the Solo story, though. Over the years, people connected to the production have discussed the creative differences that led to Lord and Miller leaving the film, with Ron Howard eventually stepping in to finish it.

Howard previously explained what he saw when he came aboard: “I looked at some edited footage, and I saw what was bothering them. There was a studio that liked the script the way it was and wanted a Star Wars movie, but there was a disconnect early on tonally, and they weren’t convinced that what Phil and Chris were doing was working effectively.”

Howard’s comments make it pretty clear that Lucasfilm had concerns about the direction Solo was taking. As Lucasfilm president, Kennedy was obviously a major figure in the studio during that process, even if the final decision involved additional layers of authority.

Looking back at Kennedy’s Lucasfilm run is complicated because there’s a lot to unpack. Her era gave fans movies including The Force Awakens, Rogue One, The Last Jedi, Solo, and The Rise of Skywalker, while television brought projects such as The Mandalorian, Andor, Ahsoka, The Acolyte, and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Some became major hits with fans, while others remain heavily debated.

That probably gets to the heart of Kennedy’s point about managing Star Wars. This franchise means very different things to different people, and getting millions of fans to agree on where it should go next was never going to be easy.

Now that Kennedy’s time running Lucasfilm has come to an end, how do you look back on her Star Wars era? What do you think she got right, what would you have liked to see handled differently, and what do you make of her comments about Lord and Miller?