Kathleen Kennedy Refuses To Fire Herself
Disney CEO Bob Iger has run out of patience with Lucasfilm president and resident black sheep of the Disney Infinity Gauntlet of Entertainment Properties™, Kathleen Kennedy. After an illustrious career as one of the most successful and respected producers in Hollywood, Kennedy has struggled at the helm of the studio founded by Star Wars creator George Lucas.
From the start of her tenure, Kennedy vowed to make the space opera franchise for everyone, promising greater diversity and representation. Despite an altruistic and progressive mission, she managed to alienate core Star Wars fans in pursuit of a more “woke” generation. Kennedy has brazenly gone on record stating the franchise would no longer pander to 12-year old boys. She has even sported shirts declaring The Force is Female. And yet, most fans were ready to accept the sea change… as long as it meant more Star Wars. After all, Episode VII would be the first new entry in the saga in over a decade – and under new management no less!
Things looked promising as The Force Awakens broke a number of domestic and global box office records. Since then, however, the Star Wars brand has suffered a series of public relations nightmares.
Iger’s plan to release a new Star Wars film every year placed immense pressure on Kennedy to deliver the goods. The cracks began to show immediately. The first entry in a line of films dubbed Star Wars Stories — spinoffs meant to explore fresh new parts of the galaxy by fresh new voices in film — did not test well. Rogue One directed by Gareth Edwards, a filmmaker whose only noteworthy credit was a cult indie film, was in desperate need of reshoots. Troubles mounted and eventually veteran filmmaker Tony Gilroy stepped in to salvage what he could.
How ironic that Rogue One ended up feeling exactly like a classic Star Wars film. Where had the promised “fresh new voices and tones” disappeared to? Gone was the hard-nosed militaristic bent of the original treatment and in its place was the exact tried-and-true tone of the seven mainline Star Wars films again (with 30% more quips.)
Next came the biggest blunder of Kennedy’s storied career: The Last Jedi. To say the sequel directed by Rian Johnson underperformed would be an understatement. It not only earned $700 million less than projected, the film performed a “Holdo maneuver” on Star Wars fandom, splitting three generations of fans into two supremely divided camps.
The Last Jedi singlehandedly turned a significant number of lifelong fans away from the galaxy they had loved for 30-40 years. The same diehards who prided themselves on numerous repeat viewings of every Star Wars film at the theater. As it turns out, you can’t continue to insult superfans and have them show up again and again.
Iger was furious. Here was his $4 billion dollar cash cow being run into the ground for the sake of progress and pandering to demographics that weren’t supporting the product designed with them in mind. The CEO had already invested several billion to expand Disney parks with an entire area dedicated to new Star Wars attractions, including a revolutionary new immersive hotel experience.
At the same time, Disney’s other $4 billion dollar baby continued to bear fruit, already doubling the Mouse House’s investment. Marvel and its superheroes shined brighter by the film, while Star Wars declined, struggling to find success at the increasingly important Chinese box office.
Kennedy stood in stark contrast to Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, who continued to have enormous hit after hit for Iger. Some have theorized Feige’s magic touch may have bought Kennedy some more time, but ultimately his successes have undoubtedly made her missteps all the more noticeable.
It doesn’t help that Feige is a master planner – a shrewd producer who seems to know what Marvel fans want even before they know it. He laid out a plan several years in advance for multiple films to contribute to a larger storyline that would tie them all together. Meanwhile, Kennedy’s lack of a clear vision outside of vague feminist overtones for the new Star Wars saga is painfully obvious now.
Let’s recap the unplanning and subsequent unraveling of the saga films. First we have Lucas providing Kennedy with an outline and notes on how he envisioned the sequel trilogy playing out. Kennedy then hires Oscar-winning screenwriter Michael Arndt to pen a screenplay for Episode VII. Arndt fails to crank the work out at the “churn and burn” production pace Disney shareholders demand. He exits the project… and in comes J.J. Abrams and Lawrence “Larry Larr” Kasdan to save the day. They hack out a screenplay in between a series of walk-and-talks at various cities during pre-production. Very few of Lucas’ ideas remain. In their place, we’re treated to a soft reboot of A New Hope along with several Mystery Box gimmicks. Now the fun kicks into hyperdrive!
Rian Johnson is hired to write and direct Episode VIII. Mind you, Abrams and Kasdan are still making rewrites to The Force Awakens. Without a cohesive plan or even end point for the trilogy in Abrams’ head, Johnson is left to his own devices. So he gets weird with it. Johnson subverts every mystery box Abrams has set up, and manages to end The Last Jedi with what feels like the ending of the entire trilogy.
After his film’s underwhelming reception, Johnson took to Twitter to state that there had been no plan for Episodes VIII and IX when he came on board. More recently, however, Disney has attempted to change the narrative, pinning the film’s shortcomings squarely on Johnson.
Several of the usual suspects – blogs that may as well be owned by Disney given how they serve as hype machines for every one of their films — have stated that Abrams did indeed have a script for Episode VIII and notes on IX but Johnson ignored them. In what world would the executive producer of Episode VIII (Abrams) allow the director working for him (Johnson) to dismiss his script in favor of a different one?
In the midst of the The Last Jedi debacle, Kennedy was also fumbling another Star Wars film, a spinoff starring a young Han Solo. From the controversial casting of Alden Ehrenreich to the sudden dismissal of directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the prequel no one had asked for was Iger’s tipping point. He finally began strategizing how best to rid himself of Kennedy.
Normally he’d fire an underperforming executive without thinking twice. However, dismissing Kennedy would be much trickier, because of the current #timesup and #metoo climate. Iger also had his future political ambition to consider. (He’s rumored to be mulling a presidential run in 2020.)
The optics from firing Kennedy regardless of the rationale would not make him any fans. She had effectively surrounded herself with enablers and sycophants, who would immediately defend Kennedy should Iger remove her. But Iger didn’t earn his position for playing by the rules. He conjured up ingenious ways to drop Kennedy and retain his image as a successful liberal.
Initially Iger approached Lucas himself. Would the man who handpicked Kennedy to head the company be open to dismissing her?
“Not a chance. She’s your cross to bear now, Bobby-o.”
Alas, what about the Lucasfilm Story Group? Iger believed the only way Disney could relieve Kennedy and not suffer any backlash would be to have a strong intersectional woman deliver the news. He needed a woman, preferably a gay woman of color, to drop the axe. But would Kennedy’s newly installed Story Group of alpha women and vastly outnumbered token males be willing to overthrow their boss in an act of rebellion? Iger never found out, as every one of the writers and producers refused to meet with him alone, insisting Kennedy be present at any meeting.
Next, Iger turned to his good friend Oprah Winfrey. Surely the celebrated media powerhouse would be able to fire Lucasfilm’s president in exchange for a big marketing push behind Winfrey’s next starring vehicle Disney’s A Wrinkle in Time.
“Nah-ah. I just can’t do it. Stedmen went to school with Kathy, and she helped produce his thesis at Ball State.”
Having exhausted his deep rolodex, Iger turned to psychological tactics to give Kennedy a hint. First he had stickers placed on everything in her office… still, Kennedy was unfazed by “Property of Kevin Feige” labels on her stuff and her office door.
Next he had editors create a new scene featuring CG Leia – the strongest rebel around — to let Kennedy know she was effectively robbing the galaxy of hope. It also failed, because Kennedy believed it was merely an unused outtake from Rogue One, despite the fact that Leia reportedly says, “You’re fired, Kathy, get out if you know what’s good for you” during the transmission.
It was looking more and more like the only person who could fire Kennedy was Kennedy herself. According to insiders, Iger finally gave her an ultimatum after the Solo imbroglio. And, believe it or not, Kennedy is actually entertaining his request. Not to fire herself, of course, because she argued that would be “scientifically impossible, improbable and not something The Force would allow.” However, Kennedy is doing the next best thing: finding the right person to dismiss her.
She has cast a wide net for a strong female executive firmly versed in identity politics to not only fire her, but also take on the roles and responsibilities of running Lucasfilm into the ground, which will almost certainly include firing several talented people for nonsensical reasons.
As luck would have it, the process has been slow going (much like Kennedy’s search for a female director) with the Lucasfilm president meeting with thousands of potential successors, none of which have thus far had the right combination of charisma void, imagination deficiency and outright misandry necessary to continue what she started.
It seems as though, for the moment, Star Wars fans are stuck with Steven Spielberg’s former secretary at the helm of the franchise, even as it creeps ever closer into irrelevancy. There is a glimmer of hope though. An anonymous source tells FSW that Iger may forgo firing her altogether and do something even better: transfer her to run a piece of the Fox properties Disney recently purchased for $54.2 billion. This way, she could destroy other less valuable franchises until she retires or a female executive that can actually fire her is located.
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-William “Willybobo” Bobo
