By Lisa Richwine and Dawn Chmielewski
LOS ANGELES, Jan 15 (Reuters) – Kathleen Kennedy will step down from her role as president of “Star Wars” movie producer Lucasfilm this week and become a full-time producer, Walt Disney said on Thursday.
Disney has named Dave Filoni, a protégé of “Star Wars” creator George Lucas and the co-creator of “Star Wars” streaming TV series “The Mandalorian,” president and chief creative officer of Lucasfilm. He will work alongside co-president Lynwen Brennan, who runs the studio’s business operations.
Filoni, 51, will now steer one of the highest-grossing movie franchises in history as well as live-action and animated TV shows.
The 72-year-old Kennedy, who has run Lucasfilm since Disney bought it in 2012, oversaw three blockbuster sequels to the original “Star Wars” trilogy and the successful spinoff “Rogue One.”
“It has been a true privilege to spend more than a decade working alongside the extraordinary talent at Lucasfilm,” Kennedy said in a statement.
The 2018 film “Solo,” which introduced a new actor as the smuggler made famous by Harrison Ford, flopped in theaters.
Disney put the “Star Wars” movies on hiatus in 2019 to focus on live-action TV series, including “The Mandalorian” starring Pedro Pascal and the popular character Baby Yoda.
Disney scrapped planned “Star Wars” films from directors Patty Jenkins and Rian Johnson as Kennedy worked to reset the film strategy.
Filoni, meanwhile, oversaw many popular and acclaimed TV series including “The Mandalorian” and “Ahsoka.”
Both Kennedy and Filoni worked with Lucas, the creator of the original “Star Wars” film series that debuted in 1977. The franchise, about a group of rebels in a galaxy far, far away, has brought in more than $10.3 billion at global box office receipts, according to Comscore.
Lucas hand-picked Kennedy as his successor to lead Lucasfilm. The five films she oversaw brought in a combined $5.9 billion. The most successful, 2015’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” surpassed $2 billion in worldwide ticket sales.
Lucasfilm expanded into producing live-action streaming TV series under Kennedy, including Filoni’s “The Mandalorian,” which debuted with the launch of the Disney+ streaming service in 2019. Other series included “Ahsoka” and “Andor.”
The company also added “Star Wars”-themed lands at Walt Disney World in Florida and at Disneyland in California.
In 2005, Lucas hired Filoni to help build a “Star Wars” animation studio. Filoni, often spotted at Hollywood premieres and fan events wearing a cowboy hat, helped create the animated TV series “The Clone Wars.”
“The Mandalorian” will head to the big screen in May in a film co-written by Filoni called “The Mandalorian and Grogu.” The movie “Star Wars: Starfighter,” featuring Ryan Gosling, is scheduled to reach cinemas in May 2027. Kennedy will continue to work as a producer of those films.
Daisy Ridley, star of the sequel trilogy that began in 2015, also has said she is returning to a new “Star Wars” project.
(Reporting by Lisa Richwine and Dawn Chmielewski in Los Angeles; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
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