Over the past month, a number of rumors have leaked thatDisneyis planning on firing Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy and replacing her with Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige. However, Feige has now denied these crazyStar Warsrumors, confirming that he will be sticking exclusively to Marvel for the time being.
Kevin Feigehas revolutionized the movie industry, creating an unprecedented cinematic universe, personally producing nearly every movie in the MCU. All in all, Feige has done a phenomenal job, with almost every movie in the franchise being Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Additionally, he takes negative feedback incredibly well, improving future installments in the MCU in order to make up for past stumbles, such asThor: The Dark WorldandThe Incredible Hulk.
On the other hand, Kathleen Kennedy, the President of Lucasfilm in charge of theStar Warsfranchise,has not been met with as many open arms.Star Wars: The Last Jedipracticallydivided the entire franchise, and then there wasSolo: A Star Wars Story.Soloended up costing Lucasfilm and Disney twice as much money when the initial directors she chose allegedly bombed in the director’s chair, creating a completely different movie than they were hired to make. While this is mostly the fault of the directors, one could also easily blame Kennedy, who was supposed to be producing the project but didn’t realize the major issues with the movie until 5 months into production. Yikes.
The box office failure ofSolo: A Star Wars Storylast month seemed to be the final straw for Disney, as new rumors suggest that they are looking to replace Kathleen Kennedy, but are currently unable to find a suitable replacement. That is where the rumor about Kevin Feige taking over came into the picture. Feige has done such a great job with Marvel Studios, many fans thought he would be great taking over Lucasfilm as well. Here is what Feige had to say on whether or not he would be taking the helm of theStar Warsfranchise.
“No. Only in my backyard with my action figures.”
While this denial may be disappointing to a number ofStar Warsfans anxious to see Lucasfilm in the right hands, it is absolutely understandable. At Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige is in charge of producing around 3 high budget movies every year, which is a lot of work for a Hollywood producer.Taking over another enormous franchisewould arguably just be too much for Feige to bear, and both series would likely suffer from it.
Additionally, it wouldn’t work to move Feige exclusively to Lucasfilm, as his roots lie solely in Marvel. Plus, Marvel is incredibly more profitable for Disney right now, so it makes sense that they are keeping their best player in their best franchise.
While this may not be the news that everyone wanted, this revelation from Kevin Feige toSlash Filmmakes a lot of sense. Some rumors are just too good to be true. Hopefully Disney will find a suitable replacement for Kathleen Kennedy at Lucasfilm if the rumors of Disney wanting her gone are true. On the other hand, hopefully Disney will find a way to keep theStar Warsfranchise relatively stable going forward if the rumors are false. Only time will tell what the future holds for Lucasfilm.
