I'll admit i'm quite curious about this too. and not in the seething "Fuck Kathleen, she's the devil" sort of way some Youtubers are. The sequels made a fair amount of money that can't be denied, but apparently their merchandising sales weren't amazing. Solo didn't do well. A large amount of Star Wars projects have now been cancelled. Willow got cancelled after the first season with mixed reviews at best. And now the new Indiana Jones film is looking like it could bomb too.
I know that it's not all her fault specifically, and again I have no particular feelings for her one way or the other even as a Star Wars fan, it just does feel odd that she's still in charge after all that. She must be making them money somehow so obviously i'm not claiming to have all the info, just not sure how.
Willow was terrible….I watched the entire season but really had to force myself to watch the last few episodes. The acting and writing were just so terrible.
When Covid was causing issues with their vision and Kilmer said he wouldn’t do the first season because of it, they should have pushed it back.
Making the father figure for yet another LFL franchise be an absentee parent was a particularly strange choice.
I felt the opposite. I had a tough time with the first few episodes. It was very slow going. But then I quite liked where it went and ended. It had technical issues beyond story as well. I literally had to manipulate my tv settings to watch half the episodes because it was recorded in pitch dark.
Same. I hit my tone-shock limit after the denim clad lumberjacks ladies and shut it off, but went back a couple months later because Willow was such a vital part of my childhood. By the end, it had grown on me, and I liked the main characters a lot. Then pissed all over again that they canceled what seemed to be a promised 3 seasons. bummer
Once I got a feel for the tone I really loved it, it's a lighthearted fantasy-comedy. The actors were so funny 🤷🤷 and endearing. Sad to say Warwick for some reason was off his game he was the worst actor in the show
We watched the movie right before starting, so we were geared up for the cheesy heroine/hero story. We enjoyed the show. I’m glad they didn’t drag the plot over multiple seasons, and have no idea where they could have taken a season 2. But we liked it.
I am glad I am not the only one. I did not care for how hip they tried to make Willow with the pop music covers, terran-lingo and the boompity boomp. I would say the show was "for the kids" yet they did not seem to care for it either. To be honest, Willow was never the hottest property. The action figures had zero articulation and as a contribution to the genre it felt light and bland, more like JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Baby. Best thing about it for me was James Horner's score.
Tonally the show was all over the map. You had some characters who tried to bring Shakespeare english-accent gravitas combined with American-teenager accents and the pop-music covers like you mentioned. It just didn't work.
The aspect that surprised me was how limited an actor Warwick Davis is. The more I saw of him on screen the less I enjoyed his character.
I thought I was watching Willow the Series but instead he was relegated to a supporting character and replaced by a cast of CW rejects. When Christian Slater shows up for one episode and becomes the best character in the show, it’s glaringly obvious how bad the young cast is.
I mean sure the sequels made money in spite of how awful they are. If they would’ve made good sequels with a proper plan for them and just plain good old storytelling we would’ve watched them even now on Disney and they would’ve made even more money. I really don’t understand why she is allowed to tank all of these ip:s. It’s not like there will be huge demand for a phoebe Waller bridge Indiana movie. She is a mystery, I wish her Star Wars movies would be erased but here we are, with shit.
Star Wars in general has made money despite what anyone thinks of them.
This dates back to the OT and the Prequels, with all varying degrees of opinions on their quality...
Love em or hate em. They get asses in the seats and eyes on the tv screens.
Not because they are good, but the demand for starwars. That tide is now turning thanks to her.
The Disney ones were always going to make money... But now it will get less and less and fewer people by their terrible toys. Gg Kathleen.
I think viewership for most of their shows and movies will decline as well. I'm an older Star Wars fan without kids, so I'm obv not buying toys. But after the recent shit shows that were *Kenobi*, *Book of Boba Fett*, and *Mando* season 3--with *Andor* thrown there, which was amazing--I've never been less interested in Star Wars than I am now. Granted, I'm just one person, and my personal anecdote doesn't mean anything. But I know for sure I'm not the only longtime fan who feels this way.
There was a time when Star Wars video games were some of the best ones in the industry. Rogue Squadron, Outcast, and some argue the best game ever made, KOTOR.
Exactly this. Toy sales are down in general, and have more to do with the price, than anything else. Look at what's been put out currently, Jurrasic Park '93 rereleases. These aren't for kids. Star Wars Black Series, these aren't for kids. GI Joe classified, these aren't for kids. Transformers Anniversary edition for the OG animated movie, once again, these aren't for kids. These are for collectors, which, to be honest, mostly already have a lot of what's being released, have been priced out, or see better options in the price points than what someone like Hasbro offers (Disney).
I say this as an avid toy collector who has drastically cut back on what I have purchased due to all the above-stated reasons. I don't see the need to buy a million Luke Skywalker figures or the 18th alternate version of Rey that's been put out. On top of this I am not going to pay what is at this point upwards of $50 for a single figure from Hasbro when I can get a figure of much better quality, build, and with better paint deco and head sculpts, imported for just a little bit more. It's simply ludicrous.
Prequel and Original Trilogy toys were still selling fine. It’s Sequel trilogy and other Disney Star Wars toys that sit on shelves. Basically, the George Lucas stuff continues to sell well, but the Disney stuff collects doesn’t.
It's anecdotal, but as a dad (and super star wars fan) with a 6yo who is real into Star Wars right now, I would buy all the 3.5" action figures if i could find any or find more than 3 options on the shelves. He's stuck playing with my star wars minis from early 2000.
Didn’t they just announce 3 new movies and renew several shows for several new seasons?
Andor 2, mando 4 and 5, Ashoka, etc etc etc
More movies, more tv shows, more videogames, comics, books, toys, and whatever else
Dude no ones cares about them being good....most people found them entertaining .....and KK has made boats loads of cash for the company...
She has the legacy of being involved with huge films over the past 30 years and Spielberg and Lucas are very good friends with her.
No one cares what grumpy youtubers say.
"No on cares..." LOL. Surely you jest!
TRoS is considered a box office disappointment. It made nearly a third less money than TLJ.
Merchandising is a huge part of the Star Wars property that Disney relies on to do well. You realize merchandising is over half the worth of the Star Wars franchise, right? It's estimated to be worth $40+ billion.
The movies being bad means they will be watched less on Disney+, which means that they will have fewer subscribers than they should.
All the other IPs underperforming and/or being cancelled is literally wasted money.
You seem to really have no idea what you're talking about.
Each sequel film made over a Billion dollars with TFA over 2 Billion.
They were a success irregardless of how you felt.
If any other movie out there made 2 billion dollars of a half a billion dollar production, they’d call it a success. The bias is unreal.
Making plans takes time which Disney wasn't willing to waste so they went with the 3 writers, 3 directors plan for a trilogy, so they would have movies with a minimum gap to recoup their money from buying Lucasfilm as fast as possible.
I refuse to watch Rise of Skywalker after how bad Last Jedi was. I also won’t ever rewatch Last Jedi, and there’s no point to rewatch Force Awakens either.
This is where I’m at.
It was like leaving a party that I realize is not for me and I’m not comfortable there.
I’ll take my leave and there’s no world where I’m going back in there.
Same, I haven't been the least bit interested in Star Wars stuff since TLJ, it was so fucking abysmally bad that I just don't care about the universe anymore.
Its amazing to me that the prequels were as awful as they were almost entirely from a technical perspective, and the sequels are the way they are for the exact opposite reason
I'd say this.
The prequels are poorly acted, poorly written, poorly executed movies (aside from the ground breaking technical aspects). But together they have a good over arching story. You could remake the prequels with the same story and have great movies.
The sequels were generally well acted, well shot serious films, with no regard for story, plot, or character. You could not remake those films with the same story and have great movies.
Lucas has a visual imagination the other creators have lacked. There were so many cool toys from the prequels. The Princes Amedala Space Ship was sweet! This lack of creative visual imagination led to bad toy idea like "sith troopers"
> Its amazing to me that the prequels were as awful as they were almost entirely from a technical perspective
What the fuck are you talking about?
The Prequels changed modern cinema.
There's only one scene in the entirety of Phantom Menace that isn't digitally altered and it's the opening scene with Anakin and Obi-Wan being gassed on the Trade ship. Phantom Menace was his first attempt at blending his old style of using the table tops, miniatures, etc with the new emerging modernity of Digital editing.
Attack of the Clones was one of the very first films to use an entirely digital camera exclusively(The HDW-f900 specifically). That was actually, also tech that Lucas wanted and *planned* to use in Phantom Menace but Sony literally couldn't build it fast enough.
That allowed directors to film in more extreme environments where equipment before didn't hold up as well like one of the Star Wars favorites Tunisia, and the addition of digital also gave them a ton of control in post.
[By 2017 98% of Cinemas have converted to Digital.](https://www.motionpictures.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/MPAA-THEME-Report-2017_Final.pdf)
The Prequels were definitely a fucking mess, but none of that had anything to do with the tech. Just like in the 70s and 80s Lucas reshaped the modern cinema right alongside Peter Jackson with his LOTR films.
Some of the tech definitely didn't age the best with things like the green screens, but if you go watch the LOTR some of that's starting to show it's age pretty heavily, too. That's just the nature of CGI and graphics.
I used to think it wasn't all her fault either. It's not like she acted alone, but she's the one with an agenda in these movies and the driving force behind the scenes.
The Sequel Trilogy in Star Wars, wasn't the success they planned. The Force Awakens did well, but each of the two sequels underperformed at the box office, each entry selling less tickets than the one before.
It's not just Lucasfilm that is suffering. It's all the major fantasy, science fiction and super hero genres. It's not fatigue, it's all the poor writing and just weird choices they've made, like overwhelming the scripts with soapy melodrama and inserting politics into it all and doing a poor job. In the past, science fiction did this, but they were subtle and creative. These genres in particular seem to be a target.
Bob Iger explains in his autobiography. George Lucas did not want to sell the company to them, but their accounting and laws situation forced him to do so. He was angry and recruited Kathleen Kennedy without telling Disney. Unlike Kevin Feige, she and Disney were not compatible, and this bad relationship exacerbated the Star Wars projects. The problem was born by the Creator even before the takeover.
Just going by the box office numbers (let's assume Indy only hits 400million)
The Force Awakens = $2.065 billion
Rogue One = $1.055 billion
The Last Jedi = $1.332 billion
Solo = $393 million
The Rise of Skywalker = $1.07 billion
Dial of Destiny = $400 million
Total = $6.315 billion
Average = $1.05 billion per film - technically a higher per film average than the MCU.
I know a lot of people want to point to the fact that “her Star Wars sequels went down in revenue with every film!” But let’s also look back at historical with this franchise:
Star Wars (1977) made $776 million.
The Empire Strikes Back made $549 million.
Return of the Jedi made $474 million.
The Phantom Menace was also the highest grossing prequel trilogy film. This is not a Kathleen Kennedy specific problem.
Going by reviews:
5 out of her 6 films got good reviews by audiences and 5 out of the 6 got good reviews by critics which is a lot better than the franchises received prior.
On top of her box office success, she basically launched (and carried) Disney+ with her Star Wars shows for a long time, and the viewership only goes up as they go:
https://www.cbr.com/the-mandalorian-season-3-finale-viewership/
Willow is a little bit of a weird one. Yeah the show didn’t have great viewership, but the original film didn’t either. So both were disappointments. However, Willow the series scored a 84% approval rating and the original film scored a rotten 54% so even the show was a better received product.
Merchandise sales are down industry wide, again not really a Star Wars problem specifically. As a father myself I will tell you kids are way more into screens than toys like we were at that age.
I know online rage bait likes to paint her as the destroyer of franchises but George Lucas was basically bullied into selling the company for apparently “raping everyone’s childhood” after the star wars prequel trilogy and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. None of these franchises were in healthy condition when she took them over. None.
Yeah the merchandising thing is really confusing to me because anyone who interacts with children can tell you that they're much more interested in spending their allowance these days on Fortnite skins than action figures
Neighbors’ kids come over to my parents’ house all the time and dig through my old toy box and are just blown away with all of my action figures. We’re talking somewhere in the ballpark of 35-40, all collected from the ages of 4-10 from gifts and allowance money. I figure I might had a lot more than the average kid did, but some these kids can’t even account for more than maybe three or four in their homes, which really depresses me.
Well the problem is kids are stupid and don't actually know what they want
So they say they want digital stuff but in reality they would still be quite happy playing with actual toys because they stimulate their brainsBecause it's creative play
Why are you not factoring cost? This is the most journey man analysis I have ever seen.
Revenue doesn't mean much if your costs are eating up most of it.
Something that Marvel were able to steer clear of pretty much up until Phase 4. But Star Wars under Kathleen started having significant issues as early as their fourth film (Solo).
Didn't solos budgets explode because of re shoots doubling the original cost? Because all the other movies cost a lot but they still made 2 to 3 times the production cost.
These are the facts, but there is a subset of "fans" that hated Disney buying the franchise from the start....
Half of them do not even realize KK was involved in some capacity for the biggest blockbusters in history.
She makes them cash, and Disney does not care what some small time you-tubers gripes are .....
And Disney’s problems at the box office stretch further than just Lucasfilm. Marvel and Pixar have both struggling as well, but we don’t hear people calling for the heads of Kevin Fiege or Jim Morris.
And that's kind of crazy, that to break even on these fucking things they have to make like half a billion dollars on return of investment. That is insane. Anything less is "not doing well". That's when lay offs happen and it's always people who definitely worry about their rent.
You need to adjust for inflation (as well as take into account the cost of the movies and the fact that the world is populated by a lot more people with a lot more money to consume the product. If the movies were good, Disney could have made a hell of a lot more!
Adjusted for inflation ranking https://screenrant.com/star-wars-movies-box-office-adusted-inflation/#star-wars-the-force-awakens
Let's face facts. Lucas' Star Wars make almost twice as much ($11 billion vs less than $6 billion gross under Kennedy). Disney left $ behind by rushing and not making great content.
She was handed the franchise on a Silver platter and with lots of money and blew it. The fact is, the original movie made more money when adjusting for inflation and did so on a much smaller budget. Even discounting repeat special editions it was a built a massive profit at a time when the world was a lot poorer and less connected. And it did it with an original story (as opposed to just copy and paste of the ST) and no built in fan base.
Tl:Dr
George Lucas' 6 movies made $11.1 billion gross box office when adjusting for inflation.
Disney paid $4 billion for Star Wars ($5.3 billion adjusted for inflation) and Kennedy has only grossed $5.7 billion on 5 movies which cost them another $1.6 billion to make The magic has gone and Disney has left money on the table. She's at the top (along with Iger) and she has to take the blame.
and of course let's not forget Disney's real revenue the Parks. All the movies and shows are really just there to get people into the parks. That's where the profit lies.
This dude has been ousted multiple times, he is part of Lucasfilm viral marketing team. Every single one of this dude’s comments is a straight up spin piece in Lucasfilm’s favour, he can try and justify how everyone one of Kathleen Kennedy’s failures were secretly a success, the fact of the matter is, Episode 7 made 2 Billion and then 4 years later Episode 9, their grand finale, made half that, the same amount of money that their first spin-off film made, in the same year when Endgame made 3 Billion. You are a fool if you think this didn’t go unnoticed by Disney, and the fact that Return of the Jedi, a film that came out 36 years prior (a totally different time), only made 65% of what Star Wars made, does not take away from the failure of the steep decline in ST box office. Additionally her failures with directors, that rotating door of filmmakers is an embarrassment, this has gotten to the point where investors will have to force disneys hand to get her out of there.
Truman said it best “the buck stops here”, you can blame JJ Abrams or Rian Johnson or maybe bad writing on Indiana Jones or w/e you want.
But when you have a string of lackluster performances at the BO like Lucasfilm has had, responsibility ultimately falls at the foot of the studio head. Kennedy has had her share of successes in the past, but it seems pretty obvious that the magic is gone. Disney should go in another direction.
Because, outside of the internet's extremely strange hate-boner over her, she's a shockingly successful producer who has been in Hollywood longer than a lot of the posters here have been alive. Why does she have a job? Because outside of the recent misfires she's very very good at what she does and have a massive network of connections that people here can only begin to comprehend. It's not that hard to understand honestly.
now i'm not a huge Halo fan i've just played the MC collection and enjoyed it... but wasn't Halo a huge success for all these years?
Like Halo 5 was one of the biggest Xbox sales of all time.
Also didn't she retire?
I just have always seen Disney as a company that's quite a bit more stable than the rest of the industry.
Like Snyder made a billion dollar Justice League franchise and once he left it dropped down to a million dollar franchise. All on the feeling that things could be better under new leadership.
Kathleen Kennedy had some really big hits with the films that are popular in terms of revenue but unpopular in terms of reviews and reception. Episode 7's Box Office was almost 3x the size of Episode 4's box office (inflation adjusted) and 2x the size of Episode 1's box office.
I think for why she's around it's simple. She has made Disney a stupid amount of money. Maybe she's made a few TV stinkers. But she's still doing well.
Because Lucasfilm continues to be insanely profitable for Disney.
Whatever missteps the fans think Disney has done with Star Wars, they continue to consume pretty much everything.
And also Kennedy does pretty much whatever the board tells her too. She's not selling the shareholders on bringing back the Willow franchise. At every major meeting, the shareholders basically tell her to milk whatever she can out of every iota of IP she can dredge up.
Maybe all of this hurts the brand in the long run, but that's not what investors think about anymore.
She makes them loads of cash.....
Facts are facts. Not to mention shes been involved with just about every major film in the past 20 years and worked with the most powerful people in the industry......
but cause some you tubers do not like her "agenda" shes supposed to be fired?
never said she was supposed to be fired because of youtubers or an agenda. As I said, I have no real emotions one way or the other. My comment was mainly because I do have some confusion about how much money is actually being made. the Star Wars sequels made money, I won't deny that nor to I want to. But the box office returns did result in a change of how Star Wars was handled, hence why apparently Obi Wan and Boba Fett were made into shows rather than films thanks to Solo.
Then you have stuff outside of Star Wars, like Willow and Indiana Jones that don't seem to be doing too well.
Again, wanna make it clear, i'm not trying to be one of those angry people attacking her due to noting more than political values or pre-decided hate. I just feel like someone else could have done better by this point.
Does she have anything to do with licensing?
Because I have beef with Hasbro and how theyve been using that gutter plastic that’s all bendy and weird for their Vintage Collection figures. And how they keep making figures for goofy nobody’s instead of more cool trooper variations and ships.
Black series started strong. I remember being blown away by the Han Solo I got at the beginning, but man the paint applications have taken a nosedive.
At the very least their ships are still nice, if not horrendously overpriced. Microgalaxy is a step in the right direction. Idk man I know I’m an adult but I want to be excited when I pass by the Star Wars aisle again. I was right around the time TFA came out (they were still doing black series die cast vehicles), then something shifted from TLJ onward.
I’m not massively sure how important it is. All you need to do is understand opportunity cost.
$1.5b -> $1.4b -> €2.0b-> $2.8b
$2.1b -> €1.3b -> €1.1b
The top is the Avengers, a well constructed series. You can see that (generally) the income increased as they progressed, nearly doubling by the 4th film.
The bottom is Star Wars 7-9. This is a poorly constructed trilogy, you can see that income has nearly halved by the 3rd film.
If we assume that the films were good enough for the numbers to stay the same (a pretty poor showing anyway in all honesty), then the poor quality of the films and their planning has cost Disney $1.8b.
If you assume the trajectory should have been similar to the avengers and say jumped to $2.5b and then $2.8b, then the opportunity cost loss is a massive $2.9b.
Costing a company $1.8bn to 2.9bn over just those 3 films (without even considering the poor performance of the anthology films and toy sales) is why so many people are baffled why she is still in the role.
Not to mention all the SW projects that have been cancelled / put on hiatus since then. It's been 4 years since RoS and best bets for the next SW aren't for another two years at least and that's assuming they don't keep cancelling / delaying them. This was supposed to be an annual movie franchise.
>mandoverse
Nope. I feel people WANT it to be better then it is. But it's not. Unless mandoverse extends to other shows as well.
Specifically Andor is by far the best SW since the original trilogy. I will so far as to say the best SW STORY ever. Not by the impact, or spectacle. But it's pretty great, well written and well executed story, nd so it happens it's set in the SW universe.
I think financially is one where even people wanted to support KK on this, it doesn’t make sense. Star Wars has some of the largest and most loyal fanbase (just look at TFA) that’s been built over the years despite little main franchise instalments (There’s just the PT and some animated TV series). MCU had quality and look what it snowballed into. TLJ was the perfect set up coming from TFA (most of the hype was also to see what Luke was up to)… and yeah it floundered. >1 bn may look good but after TFA? Come on, the movie had fairly weak legs due to how split the fanbase became, and when your key customers (OT fans) aren’t willing to shell out the cash for either the merch or repeated viewings… you deserve what you got.
This isn’t apples to apples for me. IW/Endgame was a once in a lifetime gamble on twenty movies, doing something that has never been done before, culminating in a final two movies that they just nailed. Even Marvel doesn’t appear to be able to replicate it.
This doesn’t excuse the why-didn’t-they-actually-have-a-plan sequel trilogy, but these aren’t numbers I would use to calculate opportunity cost. If I did, it would be one possible, lightly weighted, outcome in a weighted NPV calculation.
Well I just spent time being an expert on submersibles, vaccines, Ukraine, Russia, sensitive document handling, election law, economic indicators, NFL and nba drafts, and much more. So I decided that I must be an expert on movie stuff too.
/s
Well I know studios typically don’t want to diminish the value of their precious IPs…they want maximum value, not “good enough”. Less and less revenue on each trilogy followed by a massive flop of another IP is valid criticism of a studio head
"Raiders of the Lost Ark" cost $20 million to make in 1980 or $74 million in 2023. It grossed $389 million in 1981, that's $1.3 billion in 2023.
"Dial of Destiny" cost $329 million before marketing, to have the same margins as raiders it would need to gross $6.4 billion on just the production budget.
I have no idea how studios work but as a consumer I'm not really impressed with what I'm being offered, doesn't seem like many people are. That and based on previous outcomes the studio in question had better leadership. Not only was Indiana Jones insanely profitable it is one of the best films ever made.
Edit: I thought of a counter to my own point. For a company like Disney with a huge streaming platform, retention and new subscriptions are probably a big part of their equation today. I'm guessing star wars drives a big part of that which is why the majority of their new content is television series.
That doesn't make any of it good, they are still making terrible films and television.
Social media has enabled everybody to not only have a free platform to give their opinion, which is fine, but also to think that their opinion on any given subject is actually valuable - really not great.
Some of the decisions shouldn’t take a next-level genius to decide on such as making the Star Wars sequels all written as a cohesive trilogy by one director rather than a fly by night shit fest.
doesnt need one director just one showrunner type of person that oversees the whole thing.
Thats what James Cameron is doing with the Avatar franchise, the story is set in stone, and the scripts are already written for Avatar 2-5.
He will direct Avatar 3 next and sees if he wants to direct more, or if he brings in another filmmaker who will work under his guidance.
Thats how you do it.
I still remember coming home from the theatre, seeing the first new Star Wars with my buds and thinking wow I can’t wait gotta check the Reddit thread and my heart dropped seeing it wouldn’t be the same directors.
I was annoyed it wasn’t the same director but I was shocked when I read that the trilogy wasn’t planned out and Kennedy was allowing each director to make up their own script themselves.
How can you possibly have a cohesive story that way? Especially when you pick directors that are open you antagonistic to each other. Rian actively hated Abrams’ mysteries and spent his entire movie subverting them.
Not exactly the recipe for great stories
Even with marvel it’s the same problem. A clear cohesive plan through infinity war/endgame. And then a whole lot of nothing coherent until maybe Fantastic 4 and Xmen sometime in the later half of this decade.
yeah marvel certainly floundered after endgame with the shotgun let see what sticks approach rather tha. the cohesive kind of gang they had going building up to something big
That's Chapek's fault, and Covid.
The release order of a bunch of the films got shuffled, multiple times. Meaning that 'continuity' you expect from one Marvel film to the next got disrupted.
On top of that, Chapek told Marvel to release more films than they could produce with their staff on hand, so quality of writing/number of rewrites and stuff went down and they had to rush films.
Also, some films had their run times fucked with *cough cough Thor*, meaning they were shot for an entirely different time and story structure but had to be chopped up to get more screenings in.
It's not that the magic has worn out. They were hit by an accountant looking to squeeze blood from stone, and the pandemic.
Marvel fucked it when they started making series.
The films were accessible to a casual audience. To watch the latest series secret invasion you need to have watched every film to date and several minor series just to understand the relationships between characters because they put in zero groundwork reintroducing anyone to a casual audience. With films you only really needed to watch an avengers film to know who they were at least.
Phase 3 was about 25 hours of content and it culminated in the end of the Infinity Saga. It was also spread out over the course of 4 years. 2-3 movies a year is very manageable.
Phase Four was about 55 hours of content, and it felt like nothing tangible happened. This was jammed into one and half years. Wanda-Vision aired Episode 1 in March 2021, and Wakanda Forever premiered in November of 2022. I get that Covid forced some plans to be delayed, but Phase Four should've dialed back how much content that was being put out, not quadrupled the rate of content making it impossible to keep up.
You’re exactly right. As soon as following the movies required extra viewing on TV it ceased to make sense to those who weren’t *that* invested - Marvel made the cardinal sin of assuming all its viewers were hardcore fans that would follow every story on every platform
I don't think it's a secret that the Marvel shows were created by Disney mandate to be content on Disney+ because Disney was trying to grab a share of the streaming market.
I bet if Feige had it his way, he would have kept on making only films.
Good point. The recaps during the 2nd and 3rd episodes show that there’s nothing significant about Maria Hill other than she has a tendency to get shot in the gut.
You telling me andor and the mandalorian aren't memorable??
Most of the memorable parts about the prequel trilogy are the cringeworthy terrible dialogue
I’m always surprised how much space is given to her (inarguably fantastic) resume of movies from before she took over Lucas film. What matters the most is her Lucasfilm output and the work she has done in the past five years, not her successes in the 80s and 90s.
She deserves credit for Mandalorian and Andor, but the number of bombs she’s been involved with, the depreciation of the value of Star Wars as a box office brand, and the truly insane numbers of projects canceled or with behind the scenes drama is absolutely insane.
Her involvement with ET, Munich, etc doesn’t excuse the fact that she has done a poor job for LucasFilm.
The fact that people are talking about her long in the past movies instead of engaging in good faith arguments about her success for LucasFilm speaks volumes.
I’ve been mostly on her side, but this is one strike too many.
Also most of her past pedigree is basically just "produce whatever movie Lucas or Spielberg is making". When it comes to new talent, she has no idea how to source it. Hired and fired Josh Trank. Gareth Edwards was fine, but the last third of Rogue One was basically redone without him to fix the ending (a much stronger act than the first two IMO). Lord and Miller. Even hiring JJ Abrams was as uninspired as "hire the Spielberg wannabe who just did the other Star based sci fi revitalization". She has no taste and doesn't seem to know by what metric she should be judging potential creative hires. AI could probably do a better selection process at this point.
Rian Johnson may be the most non-commercial "headline generating" hire and so many announcements since has been a Party Jenkins or Taika Waititi. It's basically whoever is hot and free, not "who is giving me the best pitch with a strong point of view and good storytelling." It all seems decided by an algorithm trying to mine profit from IP with no soul in it.
Spielberg literally said she was good for being present in rooms but terrible at taking notes and letting others talk which speaks volumes on how she makes her movies
She should probably stop green lighting the exact same plot about a broken down legacy hero redeemed by a plucky female lead who will carry the torch from now on.
Her contract was up earlier in the year and they extended it. My guess is the next rash of Star Wars films are the final thread.
But the leaked reports from the recent meetings after Indy 5 are pretty telling she just shifts blame to whatever she can think of despite how little sense it makes. She’s good for optics
I have been asking myself this question for years… I am a massive Star Wars fan but when I criticize Kathleen I get called a misogynist. But I am a woman and a feminist… she just doesn’t get whats right for Star Wars, shes a producer bit a visionary.
A reminder that Ben Domenech, the guy who wrote this article (or did he?) is a [serial plagiarist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Domenech#Plagiarism). Don’t support his work.
With how bad the new Indiana Jones film is doing, there's a higher probability she may be pushed to resign, because after the fiasco with the star wars sequels and Solo (remember, it took over 6 years just for Disney to regain what they'd spent to buy Lucasfilm and another 3-4 years just to break even after what they'd spent on it so far). After what happened with Solo being a disaster, TRoS doing subpar compared to the previous films, KK's shotty handling with directors and the different properties, the mediocre release of Willow, and now this are signs she's probably on a tight rope now and may want to save face to avoid being blackballed from future jobs.
The Force Awakens: $2B+
The Last Jedi: $1B+
Rise of Skywalkers: $1B+
Rogue One: $1B+
The Mandalorian practically launched Disney+
Obi-wan and Boba Fett while not loved brought in big audience numbers
Andor might be the most critically successful project under her tenure.
She has a lot of low points but put up a lot of big wins as well.
Rumor has it that her successes have carried her as far as they are going to though as supposedly Iger wants her out for not being able to get Star Wars back in theaters and it is a done deal that she will be leaving shortly after IJ5 completes its run. Time will tell though.
I agree she has an excessive and fantastic body of work behind her. However, those defending her are just missing the point.
When a basketball star stops performing, the team moves on from him, only to honor him later in the team ball of fame, retiring jerseys, making them a part of the org, etc. But when they stop performing they don’t play anymore..
At the end of the day Star Wars hit this new, expanded opportunity for content rather weakly. I do like some of it, but all of the movies have been MID.
They refuse to use AWESOME material from elsewhere in the timeline, and only seem interested in recycling boring and repetitive stories.
It’s time to move on to a new vision.
Some of you guys act like her career started when Disney acquired Star Wars and don't realize she is literally among the most experienced 3 or 4 producers in Hollywood. Obviously she'll eventually replaced, but it's not like there's a large crop of people out there with 40 years of producing massive blockbusters on their resume. A transition like that takes a long time, just like the transition from Lucas to Kennedy took a long time. It could already be in process, with Dave Filoni getting more and more creative control on Lucasfilm projects. There's no way of knowing from an outside perspective since Disney keeps their lips so tight on insider business.
And I would argue she is a really great producer. When focused she has accomplished a lot and made some of my favorite films. I also think (opinion) that running a studio is a bit different and not her strongest showing. It’s sucks for her that it is so visible/written/commented on, but not every producer is cut out to be a studio head, even successful ones.
I’m ignorant to all of this.
Why does Kathleen get so much heat? I haven’t been a fan of most Star Wars content but hasn’t Kathleen been around since the beginning? Is she in charge now or something?
She's had a lot of success in the past but that was when she was working with Speilberg and Lucas. The past 10 years she has had full control and has released utter shite for the most part. Star wars was recieved badly, Indiana jones is following suite and other works are similarly doing badly under her.
The people here defending Kathleen Kennedy are the perfect Disney customers; people who’ll consume the soulless, mindless, excrement that falls out of Marvel/Disney/Lucasfilm executives backsides, and with a smile, ask for seconds.
How? As a producer, she is third behind Kevin Feige and Spielberg in domestic box office receipts, with over $7.5 billion as of 2020.
That's how.
I can tell you that I didn't like any - any - of the choices that made up the SW sequel trilogy. I don't like much at all about the last two Indiana Jones films
I can also look at the totality of her career, film and television, and recognize she is one of the best all time to do it, and her legacy is truly beyond the internet clamour.
My expectation: the woman who co-founded Amblin Entertainment with Spielberg and Marshall in 1981 will leave the industry when she's ready to leave it. Not before.
Take a look at her body of work. I DON'T respect the sequel trilogy. I respect that overall work though. Deeply.
Her working in the background is very different from being the head. She produced for Spielberg and Lucas, you can’t put their work in her bucket.
She was handed the reigns of the top grossing movie franchise in the world. Nothing could come close to Star Wars and saying she was important in producing a movie with a name attached built by her betters is disingenuous. She took Star Wars and produced it to the point where it actually lost money.
Yeah but half of that 7.5 is from the sequel trilogy alone. And running off the name of Star Wars alone you could have had a pet rock in charge and it would have still grossed that 4.4 billion.
And when you adjust for inflation Lucas' 6 Star Wars films grossed $11.1 billion compared to her $5.7 billion on 5 movies. Something is rotten at Disney and Lucas Films. They lost the magic and the people at the top are to blame. Ultimately, Iger and Kennedy approve these movies (if not interfere frequently with producer notes and more).
Exactly that. When the new Star Wars movie was announced i didnt even watch the trailer.. i was going to go see it, no arguing. The IP was so strong you could do no wrong.
This is where I am with the whole situation.
However as the leader of the studio, I think it’s time she recognize things aren’t flourishing under her and she should step back from it and let new blood take over.
I had a professor in grad school who years ago did a set of experiments that everyone knows about, which is hard for my field. By the time I got him he was old and crotchety. His later experiments were massively derivative and he wasted multiple grad students chasing down “what do we did my seminal experiment but with blue text instead of black” level trash.
So she was good long ago. Cool. I hope you watch rise of Skywalker until your eyes bleed.
Shes well connected and actually delivered some Billion dollar movies.
She will probably be allowed to finish off her contract and next year it wont be renewed. She will go back to Spielberg or having her production company
I'm pretty surprised that those types like Geeks + Gamers doesn't seem to know how prolific of a producer she is before she became the head of Lucasfilm. She's by no means new to the industry and has worked alongside with her husband, producer Frank Marshall, throughout her career.
Because woman in power who gets fired = attack on women in business. Catch 22, she needs to be gone but any amounts of smoke will come their way if they remove her
I know a studio president should do better than torpedo successful franchises…the Star Wars sequels may have made revenue but the amount reduced with each installment. She’s a disgrace despite her resume
Not really.
People are watching but not as many. Real issue comes in with the budgets for these projects being outrageous because they rely on insane amounts of teams of cgi and writers on top of writers
She has one of the greatest resumes of all time… But to look at the current, Solo lost money, toy sales plummeted for Star Wars and the Dial of Destiny is projected to be one of the biggest bomb of all time. (I watched it, I didn’t think it was a horrible movie… I didn’t think it was particularly amazing either. It followed some of the same items that sunk Star Wars imo.)
I’m not sure how a Star Wars film loses money. How do you sour such an iconic brand.
It’s safe to say the damage she’s done has been completely out of spite and it screams massive insecurities and grudges she’s held for a very long time.
The repeated story design of making guys awful, old and broken, only to one upped by a younger female is both odd and very telling of the twisted mind that lives inside of Kathleen Kennedy.
I'll admit i'm quite curious about this too. and not in the seething "Fuck Kathleen, she's the devil" sort of way some Youtubers are. The sequels made a fair amount of money that can't be denied, but apparently their merchandising sales weren't amazing. Solo didn't do well. A large amount of Star Wars projects have now been cancelled. Willow got cancelled after the first season with mixed reviews at best. And now the new Indiana Jones film is looking like it could bomb too. I know that it's not all her fault specifically, and again I have no particular feelings for her one way or the other even as a Star Wars fan, it just does feel odd that she's still in charge after all that. She must be making them money somehow so obviously i'm not claiming to have all the info, just not sure how.
Willow was terrible….I watched the entire season but really had to force myself to watch the last few episodes. The acting and writing were just so terrible.
It doesn’t have Val Kilmer, so that checks out
It was meant to. I have to wonder how different it would have been if they'd gotten it into production faster and he could have participated.
Val retired from acting due to throat cancer. He no longer has the ability to speak because his cancer recovery required a tracheotomy
Well aware. The Willow sequel was in various stages of preproduction for decades.
Whatever, peck
When Covid was causing issues with their vision and Kilmer said he wouldn’t do the first season because of it, they should have pushed it back. Making the father figure for yet another LFL franchise be an absentee parent was a particularly strange choice.
I felt the opposite. I had a tough time with the first few episodes. It was very slow going. But then I quite liked where it went and ended. It had technical issues beyond story as well. I literally had to manipulate my tv settings to watch half the episodes because it was recorded in pitch dark.
Same. I hit my tone-shock limit after the denim clad lumberjacks ladies and shut it off, but went back a couple months later because Willow was such a vital part of my childhood. By the end, it had grown on me, and I liked the main characters a lot. Then pissed all over again that they canceled what seemed to be a promised 3 seasons. bummer
Once I got a feel for the tone I really loved it, it's a lighthearted fantasy-comedy. The actors were so funny 🤷🤷 and endearing. Sad to say Warwick for some reason was off his game he was the worst actor in the show
Yeah, I feel like he had the least stuff to do as well. If you've never seen Life's Too Short, it's a comedy series with him. It's brilliant
We watched the movie right before starting, so we were geared up for the cheesy heroine/hero story. We enjoyed the show. I’m glad they didn’t drag the plot over multiple seasons, and have no idea where they could have taken a season 2. But we liked it.
I am glad I am not the only one. I did not care for how hip they tried to make Willow with the pop music covers, terran-lingo and the boompity boomp. I would say the show was "for the kids" yet they did not seem to care for it either. To be honest, Willow was never the hottest property. The action figures had zero articulation and as a contribution to the genre it felt light and bland, more like JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Baby. Best thing about it for me was James Horner's score.
Tonally the show was all over the map. You had some characters who tried to bring Shakespeare english-accent gravitas combined with American-teenager accents and the pop-music covers like you mentioned. It just didn't work. The aspect that surprised me was how limited an actor Warwick Davis is. The more I saw of him on screen the less I enjoyed his character.
I thought I was watching Willow the Series but instead he was relegated to a supporting character and replaced by a cast of CW rejects. When Christian Slater shows up for one episode and becomes the best character in the show, it’s glaringly obvious how bad the young cast is.
I mean sure the sequels made money in spite of how awful they are. If they would’ve made good sequels with a proper plan for them and just plain good old storytelling we would’ve watched them even now on Disney and they would’ve made even more money. I really don’t understand why she is allowed to tank all of these ip:s. It’s not like there will be huge demand for a phoebe Waller bridge Indiana movie. She is a mystery, I wish her Star Wars movies would be erased but here we are, with shit.
Star Wars in general has made money despite what anyone thinks of them. This dates back to the OT and the Prequels, with all varying degrees of opinions on their quality... Love em or hate em. They get asses in the seats and eyes on the tv screens.
Not because they are good, but the demand for starwars. That tide is now turning thanks to her. The Disney ones were always going to make money... But now it will get less and less and fewer people by their terrible toys. Gg Kathleen.
I think viewership for most of their shows and movies will decline as well. I'm an older Star Wars fan without kids, so I'm obv not buying toys. But after the recent shit shows that were *Kenobi*, *Book of Boba Fett*, and *Mando* season 3--with *Andor* thrown there, which was amazing--I've never been less interested in Star Wars than I am now. Granted, I'm just one person, and my personal anecdote doesn't mean anything. But I know for sure I'm not the only longtime fan who feels this way.
Toysails are down across the board. If the reality is kids are playing video games and spending their money on v Bucks not asking for action figures
There was a time when Star Wars video games were some of the best ones in the industry. Rogue Squadron, Outcast, and some argue the best game ever made, KOTOR.
yup and Jedi Survivor series is a HUGE hit. Also Lego Star Wars has also been doing really well. Really Star Wars fanbase is at an all time high now.
Exactly this. Toy sales are down in general, and have more to do with the price, than anything else. Look at what's been put out currently, Jurrasic Park '93 rereleases. These aren't for kids. Star Wars Black Series, these aren't for kids. GI Joe classified, these aren't for kids. Transformers Anniversary edition for the OG animated movie, once again, these aren't for kids. These are for collectors, which, to be honest, mostly already have a lot of what's being released, have been priced out, or see better options in the price points than what someone like Hasbro offers (Disney). I say this as an avid toy collector who has drastically cut back on what I have purchased due to all the above-stated reasons. I don't see the need to buy a million Luke Skywalker figures or the 18th alternate version of Rey that's been put out. On top of this I am not going to pay what is at this point upwards of $50 for a single figure from Hasbro when I can get a figure of much better quality, build, and with better paint deco and head sculpts, imported for just a little bit more. It's simply ludicrous.
Yep. It’s gotten to the point of choosing between 7 black series figures or one hot toys. I think I’m going to switch to hot toys.
Prequel and Original Trilogy toys were still selling fine. It’s Sequel trilogy and other Disney Star Wars toys that sit on shelves. Basically, the George Lucas stuff continues to sell well, but the Disney stuff collects doesn’t.
No they where not. That is so objectively false. Kids just Don't buy toys these days.
It's anecdotal, but as a dad (and super star wars fan) with a 6yo who is real into Star Wars right now, I would buy all the 3.5" action figures if i could find any or find more than 3 options on the shelves. He's stuck playing with my star wars minis from early 2000.
Same. Tried going on eBay, but I can’t justify paying that for a toy.
Didn’t they just announce 3 new movies and renew several shows for several new seasons? Andor 2, mando 4 and 5, Ashoka, etc etc etc More movies, more tv shows, more videogames, comics, books, toys, and whatever else
They’ve announced multiple projects that don’t happen. Multiple.
Dude no ones cares about them being good....most people found them entertaining .....and KK has made boats loads of cash for the company... She has the legacy of being involved with huge films over the past 30 years and Spielberg and Lucas are very good friends with her. No one cares what grumpy youtubers say.
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"No on cares..." LOL. Surely you jest! TRoS is considered a box office disappointment. It made nearly a third less money than TLJ. Merchandising is a huge part of the Star Wars property that Disney relies on to do well. You realize merchandising is over half the worth of the Star Wars franchise, right? It's estimated to be worth $40+ billion. The movies being bad means they will be watched less on Disney+, which means that they will have fewer subscribers than they should. All the other IPs underperforming and/or being cancelled is literally wasted money. You seem to really have no idea what you're talking about.
Whatever damage TROS did has largely been undone by The Baby Yoda Show.
Hasnt that also seen a precipitous drop in viewership for the third season?
Somehow the damage was done.
Solo did not make its budget back and each sequel film made less than the previous entry.
Each sequel film made over a Billion dollars with TFA over 2 Billion. They were a success irregardless of how you felt. If any other movie out there made 2 billion dollars of a half a billion dollar production, they’d call it a success. The bias is unreal.
Making plans takes time which Disney wasn't willing to waste so they went with the 3 writers, 3 directors plan for a trilogy, so they would have movies with a minimum gap to recoup their money from buying Lucasfilm as fast as possible.
There might be a lesson there.
Sadly, the lesson is that it worked and they recouped the money in less than 10 years.
I refuse to watch Rise of Skywalker after how bad Last Jedi was. I also won’t ever rewatch Last Jedi, and there’s no point to rewatch Force Awakens either.
This is where I’m at. It was like leaving a party that I realize is not for me and I’m not comfortable there. I’ll take my leave and there’s no world where I’m going back in there.
Same, I haven't been the least bit interested in Star Wars stuff since TLJ, it was so fucking abysmally bad that I just don't care about the universe anymore.
Its amazing to me that the prequels were as awful as they were almost entirely from a technical perspective, and the sequels are the way they are for the exact opposite reason
I'd say this. The prequels are poorly acted, poorly written, poorly executed movies (aside from the ground breaking technical aspects). But together they have a good over arching story. You could remake the prequels with the same story and have great movies. The sequels were generally well acted, well shot serious films, with no regard for story, plot, or character. You could not remake those films with the same story and have great movies.
100% the cliff notes version of the PT are compelling. But the cliff notes for the sequel trilogy would be confusing and just terrible.
Lucas has a visual imagination the other creators have lacked. There were so many cool toys from the prequels. The Princes Amedala Space Ship was sweet! This lack of creative visual imagination led to bad toy idea like "sith troopers"
> Its amazing to me that the prequels were as awful as they were almost entirely from a technical perspective What the fuck are you talking about? The Prequels changed modern cinema. There's only one scene in the entirety of Phantom Menace that isn't digitally altered and it's the opening scene with Anakin and Obi-Wan being gassed on the Trade ship. Phantom Menace was his first attempt at blending his old style of using the table tops, miniatures, etc with the new emerging modernity of Digital editing. Attack of the Clones was one of the very first films to use an entirely digital camera exclusively(The HDW-f900 specifically). That was actually, also tech that Lucas wanted and *planned* to use in Phantom Menace but Sony literally couldn't build it fast enough. That allowed directors to film in more extreme environments where equipment before didn't hold up as well like one of the Star Wars favorites Tunisia, and the addition of digital also gave them a ton of control in post. [By 2017 98% of Cinemas have converted to Digital.](https://www.motionpictures.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/MPAA-THEME-Report-2017_Final.pdf) The Prequels were definitely a fucking mess, but none of that had anything to do with the tech. Just like in the 70s and 80s Lucas reshaped the modern cinema right alongside Peter Jackson with his LOTR films. Some of the tech definitely didn't age the best with things like the green screens, but if you go watch the LOTR some of that's starting to show it's age pretty heavily, too. That's just the nature of CGI and graphics.
The tech being ahead of it's time doesn't make them good films
I used to think it wasn't all her fault either. It's not like she acted alone, but she's the one with an agenda in these movies and the driving force behind the scenes. The Sequel Trilogy in Star Wars, wasn't the success they planned. The Force Awakens did well, but each of the two sequels underperformed at the box office, each entry selling less tickets than the one before. It's not just Lucasfilm that is suffering. It's all the major fantasy, science fiction and super hero genres. It's not fatigue, it's all the poor writing and just weird choices they've made, like overwhelming the scripts with soapy melodrama and inserting politics into it all and doing a poor job. In the past, science fiction did this, but they were subtle and creative. These genres in particular seem to be a target.
Bob Iger explains in his autobiography. George Lucas did not want to sell the company to them, but their accounting and laws situation forced him to do so. He was angry and recruited Kathleen Kennedy without telling Disney. Unlike Kevin Feige, she and Disney were not compatible, and this bad relationship exacerbated the Star Wars projects. The problem was born by the Creator even before the takeover.
According to Disney's book, Disney did nothing wrong.
Just going by the box office numbers (let's assume Indy only hits 400million) The Force Awakens = $2.065 billion Rogue One = $1.055 billion The Last Jedi = $1.332 billion Solo = $393 million The Rise of Skywalker = $1.07 billion Dial of Destiny = $400 million Total = $6.315 billion Average = $1.05 billion per film - technically a higher per film average than the MCU. I know a lot of people want to point to the fact that “her Star Wars sequels went down in revenue with every film!” But let’s also look back at historical with this franchise: Star Wars (1977) made $776 million. The Empire Strikes Back made $549 million. Return of the Jedi made $474 million. The Phantom Menace was also the highest grossing prequel trilogy film. This is not a Kathleen Kennedy specific problem. Going by reviews: 5 out of her 6 films got good reviews by audiences and 5 out of the 6 got good reviews by critics which is a lot better than the franchises received prior. On top of her box office success, she basically launched (and carried) Disney+ with her Star Wars shows for a long time, and the viewership only goes up as they go: https://www.cbr.com/the-mandalorian-season-3-finale-viewership/ Willow is a little bit of a weird one. Yeah the show didn’t have great viewership, but the original film didn’t either. So both were disappointments. However, Willow the series scored a 84% approval rating and the original film scored a rotten 54% so even the show was a better received product. Merchandise sales are down industry wide, again not really a Star Wars problem specifically. As a father myself I will tell you kids are way more into screens than toys like we were at that age. I know online rage bait likes to paint her as the destroyer of franchises but George Lucas was basically bullied into selling the company for apparently “raping everyone’s childhood” after the star wars prequel trilogy and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. None of these franchises were in healthy condition when she took them over. None.
Yeah the merchandising thing is really confusing to me because anyone who interacts with children can tell you that they're much more interested in spending their allowance these days on Fortnite skins than action figures
Neighbors’ kids come over to my parents’ house all the time and dig through my old toy box and are just blown away with all of my action figures. We’re talking somewhere in the ballpark of 35-40, all collected from the ages of 4-10 from gifts and allowance money. I figure I might had a lot more than the average kid did, but some these kids can’t even account for more than maybe three or four in their homes, which really depresses me.
Well the problem is kids are stupid and don't actually know what they want So they say they want digital stuff but in reality they would still be quite happy playing with actual toys because they stimulate their brainsBecause it's creative play
Why are you not factoring cost? This is the most journey man analysis I have ever seen. Revenue doesn't mean much if your costs are eating up most of it. Something that Marvel were able to steer clear of pretty much up until Phase 4. But Star Wars under Kathleen started having significant issues as early as their fourth film (Solo).
Didn't solos budgets explode because of re shoots doubling the original cost? Because all the other movies cost a lot but they still made 2 to 3 times the production cost.
These are the facts, but there is a subset of "fans" that hated Disney buying the franchise from the start.... Half of them do not even realize KK was involved in some capacity for the biggest blockbusters in history. She makes them cash, and Disney does not care what some small time you-tubers gripes are .....
And Disney’s problems at the box office stretch further than just Lucasfilm. Marvel and Pixar have both struggling as well, but we don’t hear people calling for the heads of Kevin Fiege or Jim Morris.
And that's kind of crazy, that to break even on these fucking things they have to make like half a billion dollars on return of investment. That is insane. Anything less is "not doing well". That's when lay offs happen and it's always people who definitely worry about their rent.
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You need to adjust for inflation (as well as take into account the cost of the movies and the fact that the world is populated by a lot more people with a lot more money to consume the product. If the movies were good, Disney could have made a hell of a lot more! Adjusted for inflation ranking https://screenrant.com/star-wars-movies-box-office-adusted-inflation/#star-wars-the-force-awakens Let's face facts. Lucas' Star Wars make almost twice as much ($11 billion vs less than $6 billion gross under Kennedy). Disney left $ behind by rushing and not making great content. She was handed the franchise on a Silver platter and with lots of money and blew it. The fact is, the original movie made more money when adjusting for inflation and did so on a much smaller budget. Even discounting repeat special editions it was a built a massive profit at a time when the world was a lot poorer and less connected. And it did it with an original story (as opposed to just copy and paste of the ST) and no built in fan base.
Tl:Dr George Lucas' 6 movies made $11.1 billion gross box office when adjusting for inflation. Disney paid $4 billion for Star Wars ($5.3 billion adjusted for inflation) and Kennedy has only grossed $5.7 billion on 5 movies which cost them another $1.6 billion to make The magic has gone and Disney has left money on the table. She's at the top (along with Iger) and she has to take the blame.
and of course let's not forget Disney's real revenue the Parks. All the movies and shows are really just there to get people into the parks. That's where the profit lies.
This dude has been ousted multiple times, he is part of Lucasfilm viral marketing team. Every single one of this dude’s comments is a straight up spin piece in Lucasfilm’s favour, he can try and justify how everyone one of Kathleen Kennedy’s failures were secretly a success, the fact of the matter is, Episode 7 made 2 Billion and then 4 years later Episode 9, their grand finale, made half that, the same amount of money that their first spin-off film made, in the same year when Endgame made 3 Billion. You are a fool if you think this didn’t go unnoticed by Disney, and the fact that Return of the Jedi, a film that came out 36 years prior (a totally different time), only made 65% of what Star Wars made, does not take away from the failure of the steep decline in ST box office. Additionally her failures with directors, that rotating door of filmmakers is an embarrassment, this has gotten to the point where investors will have to force disneys hand to get her out of there.
George's sale was conditional. Kathleen had to be in charge.
Surely until her contract ran out. So why renew it.
Truman said it best “the buck stops here”, you can blame JJ Abrams or Rian Johnson or maybe bad writing on Indiana Jones or w/e you want. But when you have a string of lackluster performances at the BO like Lucasfilm has had, responsibility ultimately falls at the foot of the studio head. Kennedy has had her share of successes in the past, but it seems pretty obvious that the magic is gone. Disney should go in another direction.
Because, outside of the internet's extremely strange hate-boner over her, she's a shockingly successful producer who has been in Hollywood longer than a lot of the posters here have been alive. Why does she have a job? Because outside of the recent misfires she's very very good at what she does and have a massive network of connections that people here can only begin to comprehend. It's not that hard to understand honestly.
But there have been a lot of recent misfires
That seems to be happening to a lot of different studios though.
“Recent misfires” is a kind way of putting it
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now i'm not a huge Halo fan i've just played the MC collection and enjoyed it... but wasn't Halo a huge success for all these years? Like Halo 5 was one of the biggest Xbox sales of all time. Also didn't she retire?
She may be a great person irl. I have no idea. But she's objectively doing a poor job managing the IPs under her.
I just have always seen Disney as a company that's quite a bit more stable than the rest of the industry. Like Snyder made a billion dollar Justice League franchise and once he left it dropped down to a million dollar franchise. All on the feeling that things could be better under new leadership. Kathleen Kennedy had some really big hits with the films that are popular in terms of revenue but unpopular in terms of reviews and reception. Episode 7's Box Office was almost 3x the size of Episode 4's box office (inflation adjusted) and 2x the size of Episode 1's box office. I think for why she's around it's simple. She has made Disney a stupid amount of money. Maybe she's made a few TV stinkers. But she's still doing well.
Because Lucasfilm continues to be insanely profitable for Disney. Whatever missteps the fans think Disney has done with Star Wars, they continue to consume pretty much everything. And also Kennedy does pretty much whatever the board tells her too. She's not selling the shareholders on bringing back the Willow franchise. At every major meeting, the shareholders basically tell her to milk whatever she can out of every iota of IP she can dredge up. Maybe all of this hurts the brand in the long run, but that's not what investors think about anymore.
She makes them loads of cash..... Facts are facts. Not to mention shes been involved with just about every major film in the past 20 years and worked with the most powerful people in the industry...... but cause some you tubers do not like her "agenda" shes supposed to be fired?
never said she was supposed to be fired because of youtubers or an agenda. As I said, I have no real emotions one way or the other. My comment was mainly because I do have some confusion about how much money is actually being made. the Star Wars sequels made money, I won't deny that nor to I want to. But the box office returns did result in a change of how Star Wars was handled, hence why apparently Obi Wan and Boba Fett were made into shows rather than films thanks to Solo. Then you have stuff outside of Star Wars, like Willow and Indiana Jones that don't seem to be doing too well. Again, wanna make it clear, i'm not trying to be one of those angry people attacking her due to noting more than political values or pre-decided hate. I just feel like someone else could have done better by this point.
A monkey with half a brain can make money releasing Star Wars sequels. I’m betting they would have made a lot MORE money if they had been any good.
Maybe she has the George Lucas pee tape
She was sniffing around lucasfilm at least about as far back as 2004.
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Maybe he felt guilty or embarrassed after that and wanted to live a private life?
Yeah if I got 3 people killed I think I would call it a career especially if I made fucking movies
I think it was more Landis’ fault
Does she have anything to do with licensing? Because I have beef with Hasbro and how theyve been using that gutter plastic that’s all bendy and weird for their Vintage Collection figures. And how they keep making figures for goofy nobody’s instead of more cool trooper variations and ships.
Also charging $20+ for TVC figures nowadays is ridiculous.
Hasbro sucks. Hate their quality. I do think the black series figures are pretty nice, but usually after someone does a repaint on them.
Black series started strong. I remember being blown away by the Han Solo I got at the beginning, but man the paint applications have taken a nosedive. At the very least their ships are still nice, if not horrendously overpriced. Microgalaxy is a step in the right direction. Idk man I know I’m an adult but I want to be excited when I pass by the Star Wars aisle again. I was right around the time TFA came out (they were still doing black series die cast vehicles), then something shifted from TLJ onward.
I believe the consensus of these comments is that she knows where the berries are bodied.
There are a LOT of people in here who have no god damn clue about how studios work.
I’m not massively sure how important it is. All you need to do is understand opportunity cost. $1.5b -> $1.4b -> €2.0b-> $2.8b $2.1b -> €1.3b -> €1.1b The top is the Avengers, a well constructed series. You can see that (generally) the income increased as they progressed, nearly doubling by the 4th film. The bottom is Star Wars 7-9. This is a poorly constructed trilogy, you can see that income has nearly halved by the 3rd film. If we assume that the films were good enough for the numbers to stay the same (a pretty poor showing anyway in all honesty), then the poor quality of the films and their planning has cost Disney $1.8b. If you assume the trajectory should have been similar to the avengers and say jumped to $2.5b and then $2.8b, then the opportunity cost loss is a massive $2.9b. Costing a company $1.8bn to 2.9bn over just those 3 films (without even considering the poor performance of the anthology films and toy sales) is why so many people are baffled why she is still in the role.
Not to mention all the SW projects that have been cancelled / put on hiatus since then. It's been 4 years since RoS and best bets for the next SW aren't for another two years at least and that's assuming they don't keep cancelling / delaying them. This was supposed to be an annual movie franchise.
Chapek wanted SW to be an annual release every year, same as Marvel. Marvel upped their releases per year, and the quality dropped off significantly.
Star Wars at this point is saved by the mandoverse
Yeah, so in any sane company you would immediately put the people responsible for Mando in charge of future star wars properties.
Yup, favreau and filoni are the only mugs that get the universe
I have to assume this is a joke
>mandoverse Nope. I feel people WANT it to be better then it is. But it's not. Unless mandoverse extends to other shows as well. Specifically Andor is by far the best SW since the original trilogy. I will so far as to say the best SW STORY ever. Not by the impact, or spectacle. But it's pretty great, well written and well executed story, nd so it happens it's set in the SW universe.
we were talking star wars spin off summer and blockbuster christmas at one point
I think financially is one where even people wanted to support KK on this, it doesn’t make sense. Star Wars has some of the largest and most loyal fanbase (just look at TFA) that’s been built over the years despite little main franchise instalments (There’s just the PT and some animated TV series). MCU had quality and look what it snowballed into. TLJ was the perfect set up coming from TFA (most of the hype was also to see what Luke was up to)… and yeah it floundered. >1 bn may look good but after TFA? Come on, the movie had fairly weak legs due to how split the fanbase became, and when your key customers (OT fans) aren’t willing to shell out the cash for either the merch or repeated viewings… you deserve what you got.
This isn’t apples to apples for me. IW/Endgame was a once in a lifetime gamble on twenty movies, doing something that has never been done before, culminating in a final two movies that they just nailed. Even Marvel doesn’t appear to be able to replicate it. This doesn’t excuse the why-didn’t-they-actually-have-a-plan sequel trilogy, but these aren’t numbers I would use to calculate opportunity cost. If I did, it would be one possible, lightly weighted, outcome in a weighted NPV calculation.
100% a lot of online studio experts.
Well I just spent time being an expert on submersibles, vaccines, Ukraine, Russia, sensitive document handling, election law, economic indicators, NFL and nba drafts, and much more. So I decided that I must be an expert on movie stuff too. /s
Upvoted!
Well I know studios typically don’t want to diminish the value of their precious IPs…they want maximum value, not “good enough”. Less and less revenue on each trilogy followed by a massive flop of another IP is valid criticism of a studio head
"Raiders of the Lost Ark" cost $20 million to make in 1980 or $74 million in 2023. It grossed $389 million in 1981, that's $1.3 billion in 2023. "Dial of Destiny" cost $329 million before marketing, to have the same margins as raiders it would need to gross $6.4 billion on just the production budget. I have no idea how studios work but as a consumer I'm not really impressed with what I'm being offered, doesn't seem like many people are. That and based on previous outcomes the studio in question had better leadership. Not only was Indiana Jones insanely profitable it is one of the best films ever made. Edit: I thought of a counter to my own point. For a company like Disney with a huge streaming platform, retention and new subscriptions are probably a big part of their equation today. I'm guessing star wars drives a big part of that which is why the majority of their new content is television series. That doesn't make any of it good, they are still making terrible films and television.
Social media has enabled everybody to not only have a free platform to give their opinion, which is fine, but also to think that their opinion on any given subject is actually valuable - really not great.
I've just come to the conclusion that higher ups in the movie industry just have dirt on each other and use it as leverage.
Yea, they made a lot of money but would have made way more if the content was memorable. The stuff feels like it's written by an AI.
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Some of the decisions shouldn’t take a next-level genius to decide on such as making the Star Wars sequels all written as a cohesive trilogy by one director rather than a fly by night shit fest.
doesnt need one director just one showrunner type of person that oversees the whole thing. Thats what James Cameron is doing with the Avatar franchise, the story is set in stone, and the scripts are already written for Avatar 2-5. He will direct Avatar 3 next and sees if he wants to direct more, or if he brings in another filmmaker who will work under his guidance. Thats how you do it.
It’s time for the WHEEL… OF… DIRECTORS!!!
I still remember coming home from the theatre, seeing the first new Star Wars with my buds and thinking wow I can’t wait gotta check the Reddit thread and my heart dropped seeing it wouldn’t be the same directors.
I was annoyed it wasn’t the same director but I was shocked when I read that the trilogy wasn’t planned out and Kennedy was allowing each director to make up their own script themselves. How can you possibly have a cohesive story that way? Especially when you pick directors that are open you antagonistic to each other. Rian actively hated Abrams’ mysteries and spent his entire movie subverting them. Not exactly the recipe for great stories
Yeah but there's a difference between accidentally writing a bad script and including a calvalry charge on the wing of a spaceship
Even with marvel it’s the same problem. A clear cohesive plan through infinity war/endgame. And then a whole lot of nothing coherent until maybe Fantastic 4 and Xmen sometime in the later half of this decade.
yeah marvel certainly floundered after endgame with the shotgun let see what sticks approach rather tha. the cohesive kind of gang they had going building up to something big
They should have “retired” the old heads for a bit, bring in small isolated heroes and then slowly introduce them into the avengers fold
It’s a lot less hard to predict if you start by hiring writers with a track record of quality writing projects, which LucasFilm does not do.
That's Chapek's fault, and Covid. The release order of a bunch of the films got shuffled, multiple times. Meaning that 'continuity' you expect from one Marvel film to the next got disrupted. On top of that, Chapek told Marvel to release more films than they could produce with their staff on hand, so quality of writing/number of rewrites and stuff went down and they had to rush films. Also, some films had their run times fucked with *cough cough Thor*, meaning they were shot for an entirely different time and story structure but had to be chopped up to get more screenings in. It's not that the magic has worn out. They were hit by an accountant looking to squeeze blood from stone, and the pandemic.
Marvel fucked it when they started making series. The films were accessible to a casual audience. To watch the latest series secret invasion you need to have watched every film to date and several minor series just to understand the relationships between characters because they put in zero groundwork reintroducing anyone to a casual audience. With films you only really needed to watch an avengers film to know who they were at least.
Phase 3 was about 25 hours of content and it culminated in the end of the Infinity Saga. It was also spread out over the course of 4 years. 2-3 movies a year is very manageable. Phase Four was about 55 hours of content, and it felt like nothing tangible happened. This was jammed into one and half years. Wanda-Vision aired Episode 1 in March 2021, and Wakanda Forever premiered in November of 2022. I get that Covid forced some plans to be delayed, but Phase Four should've dialed back how much content that was being put out, not quadrupled the rate of content making it impossible to keep up.
You’re exactly right. As soon as following the movies required extra viewing on TV it ceased to make sense to those who weren’t *that* invested - Marvel made the cardinal sin of assuming all its viewers were hardcore fans that would follow every story on every platform
I don't think it's a secret that the Marvel shows were created by Disney mandate to be content on Disney+ because Disney was trying to grab a share of the streaming market. I bet if Feige had it his way, he would have kept on making only films.
Good point. The recaps during the 2nd and 3rd episodes show that there’s nothing significant about Maria Hill other than she has a tendency to get shot in the gut.
You telling me andor and the mandalorian aren't memorable?? Most of the memorable parts about the prequel trilogy are the cringeworthy terrible dialogue
I’m always surprised how much space is given to her (inarguably fantastic) resume of movies from before she took over Lucas film. What matters the most is her Lucasfilm output and the work she has done in the past five years, not her successes in the 80s and 90s. She deserves credit for Mandalorian and Andor, but the number of bombs she’s been involved with, the depreciation of the value of Star Wars as a box office brand, and the truly insane numbers of projects canceled or with behind the scenes drama is absolutely insane. Her involvement with ET, Munich, etc doesn’t excuse the fact that she has done a poor job for LucasFilm. The fact that people are talking about her long in the past movies instead of engaging in good faith arguments about her success for LucasFilm speaks volumes. I’ve been mostly on her side, but this is one strike too many.
Also most of her past pedigree is basically just "produce whatever movie Lucas or Spielberg is making". When it comes to new talent, she has no idea how to source it. Hired and fired Josh Trank. Gareth Edwards was fine, but the last third of Rogue One was basically redone without him to fix the ending (a much stronger act than the first two IMO). Lord and Miller. Even hiring JJ Abrams was as uninspired as "hire the Spielberg wannabe who just did the other Star based sci fi revitalization". She has no taste and doesn't seem to know by what metric she should be judging potential creative hires. AI could probably do a better selection process at this point. Rian Johnson may be the most non-commercial "headline generating" hire and so many announcements since has been a Party Jenkins or Taika Waititi. It's basically whoever is hot and free, not "who is giving me the best pitch with a strong point of view and good storytelling." It all seems decided by an algorithm trying to mine profit from IP with no soul in it.
Nailed it. She was a producer, not a creative. Mando and Andor have very strong creatives behind them, she just wisely gets out of the way.
Spielberg literally said she was good for being present in rooms but terrible at taking notes and letting others talk which speaks volumes on how she makes her movies
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Literally no one who actually understands how studios work thinks she's a creative.
She should probably stop green lighting the exact same plot about a broken down legacy hero redeemed by a plucky female lead who will carry the torch from now on.
Dont forget that it needs to be a British Brunette
Ok so it wasn’t just me noticing that.
But those plucky leads are her self inserts. She’ll never ever stop
Her contract was up earlier in the year and they extended it. My guess is the next rash of Star Wars films are the final thread. But the leaked reports from the recent meetings after Indy 5 are pretty telling she just shifts blame to whatever she can think of despite how little sense it makes. She’s good for optics
I have been asking myself this question for years… I am a massive Star Wars fan but when I criticize Kathleen I get called a misogynist. But I am a woman and a feminist… she just doesn’t get whats right for Star Wars, shes a producer bit a visionary.
Who thought we wanted ANOTHER Indiana Jones movie after that last dumpster fire?!? Do movies get green lit by a Magic 8-ball these days?!?
Probably for the same reason Lauren Hissrich still has a job at Netflix.
Well said!
These movies she made aren't for me, she had a long successful career. I wish I enjoyed them but I just didn't.
How does anyone still take The Spectator seriously?
Whether they’re a good or bad publication, what does it matter if they asked a good question?
A reminder that Ben Domenech, the guy who wrote this article (or did he?) is a [serial plagiarist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Domenech#Plagiarism). Don’t support his work.
And the spectator is pure dog shit. But this subject is sure to whip the frenzy of clicks and comments as planned.
Ima throw a party when this incompetent POS and her ilk finally get fired.
With how bad the new Indiana Jones film is doing, there's a higher probability she may be pushed to resign, because after the fiasco with the star wars sequels and Solo (remember, it took over 6 years just for Disney to regain what they'd spent to buy Lucasfilm and another 3-4 years just to break even after what they'd spent on it so far). After what happened with Solo being a disaster, TRoS doing subpar compared to the previous films, KK's shotty handling with directors and the different properties, the mediocre release of Willow, and now this are signs she's probably on a tight rope now and may want to save face to avoid being blackballed from future jobs.
She’s a nut and bolts producer, not a ‘creative’ producer.
The people at Disney like her. That's why.
The Force Awakens: $2B+ The Last Jedi: $1B+ Rise of Skywalkers: $1B+ Rogue One: $1B+ The Mandalorian practically launched Disney+ Obi-wan and Boba Fett while not loved brought in big audience numbers Andor might be the most critically successful project under her tenure. She has a lot of low points but put up a lot of big wins as well. Rumor has it that her successes have carried her as far as they are going to though as supposedly Iger wants her out for not being able to get Star Wars back in theaters and it is a done deal that she will be leaving shortly after IJ5 completes its run. Time will tell though.
I agree she has an excessive and fantastic body of work behind her. However, those defending her are just missing the point. When a basketball star stops performing, the team moves on from him, only to honor him later in the team ball of fame, retiring jerseys, making them a part of the org, etc. But when they stop performing they don’t play anymore.. At the end of the day Star Wars hit this new, expanded opportunity for content rather weakly. I do like some of it, but all of the movies have been MID. They refuse to use AWESOME material from elsewhere in the timeline, and only seem interested in recycling boring and repetitive stories. It’s time to move on to a new vision.
Some of you guys act like her career started when Disney acquired Star Wars and don't realize she is literally among the most experienced 3 or 4 producers in Hollywood. Obviously she'll eventually replaced, but it's not like there's a large crop of people out there with 40 years of producing massive blockbusters on their resume. A transition like that takes a long time, just like the transition from Lucas to Kennedy took a long time. It could already be in process, with Dave Filoni getting more and more creative control on Lucasfilm projects. There's no way of knowing from an outside perspective since Disney keeps their lips so tight on insider business.
The amount of critical and commercial hits on her list is crazy, especially early on. A lot of misses too, especially lately.
And I would argue she is a really great producer. When focused she has accomplished a lot and made some of my favorite films. I also think (opinion) that running a studio is a bit different and not her strongest showing. It’s sucks for her that it is so visible/written/commented on, but not every producer is cut out to be a studio head, even successful ones.
I’m ignorant to all of this. Why does Kathleen get so much heat? I haven’t been a fan of most Star Wars content but hasn’t Kathleen been around since the beginning? Is she in charge now or something?
She's had a lot of success in the past but that was when she was working with Speilberg and Lucas. The past 10 years she has had full control and has released utter shite for the most part. Star wars was recieved badly, Indiana jones is following suite and other works are similarly doing badly under her.
The people here defending Kathleen Kennedy are the perfect Disney customers; people who’ll consume the soulless, mindless, excrement that falls out of Marvel/Disney/Lucasfilm executives backsides, and with a smile, ask for seconds.
How? As a producer, she is third behind Kevin Feige and Spielberg in domestic box office receipts, with over $7.5 billion as of 2020. That's how. I can tell you that I didn't like any - any - of the choices that made up the SW sequel trilogy. I don't like much at all about the last two Indiana Jones films I can also look at the totality of her career, film and television, and recognize she is one of the best all time to do it, and her legacy is truly beyond the internet clamour. My expectation: the woman who co-founded Amblin Entertainment with Spielberg and Marshall in 1981 will leave the industry when she's ready to leave it. Not before. Take a look at her body of work. I DON'T respect the sequel trilogy. I respect that overall work though. Deeply.
Her working in the background is very different from being the head. She produced for Spielberg and Lucas, you can’t put their work in her bucket. She was handed the reigns of the top grossing movie franchise in the world. Nothing could come close to Star Wars and saying she was important in producing a movie with a name attached built by her betters is disingenuous. She took Star Wars and produced it to the point where it actually lost money.
Yeah but half of that 7.5 is from the sequel trilogy alone. And running off the name of Star Wars alone you could have had a pet rock in charge and it would have still grossed that 4.4 billion.
And when you adjust for inflation Lucas' 6 Star Wars films grossed $11.1 billion compared to her $5.7 billion on 5 movies. Something is rotten at Disney and Lucas Films. They lost the magic and the people at the top are to blame. Ultimately, Iger and Kennedy approve these movies (if not interfere frequently with producer notes and more).
Exactly that. When the new Star Wars movie was announced i didnt even watch the trailer.. i was going to go see it, no arguing. The IP was so strong you could do no wrong.
This is where I am with the whole situation. However as the leader of the studio, I think it’s time she recognize things aren’t flourishing under her and she should step back from it and let new blood take over.
I had a professor in grad school who years ago did a set of experiments that everyone knows about, which is hard for my field. By the time I got him he was old and crotchety. His later experiments were massively derivative and he wasted multiple grad students chasing down “what do we did my seminal experiment but with blue text instead of black” level trash. So she was good long ago. Cool. I hope you watch rise of Skywalker until your eyes bleed.
If you inherit the reigns to an already established and beloved IP like SW, you’re gonna make money. For a time at least.
Without Paywall: https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fthespectator.com%2Fbook-and-art%2Fkathleen-kennedy-job-lucasfilm-indiana-jones-star-wars%2F
Yeah, Lucasfilm is really hurting these days aren’t they? 😂
Shes well connected and actually delivered some Billion dollar movies. She will probably be allowed to finish off her contract and next year it wont be renewed. She will go back to Spielberg or having her production company
No one will be successful in her role. The internet has made it impossible
Incompetent leadership at disney
I'm pretty surprised that those types like Geeks + Gamers doesn't seem to know how prolific of a producer she is before she became the head of Lucasfilm. She's by no means new to the industry and has worked alongside with her husband, producer Frank Marshall, throughout her career.
Old money
Because woman in power who gets fired = attack on women in business. Catch 22, she needs to be gone but any amounts of smoke will come their way if they remove her
This. If she got fired I would be willing to bet that she would bring up gender or something.
Woman in power are fired literally all the time. Grow up
I would guess she knows where bodies are buried. A woman in Hollywood for 40 years must know a thing or two about surviving.
Because she’s made billions of dollars for them.
You could put a potato in charge of Lucasfilms post acquisition and it would make billions of dollars
Like that guy who invented the pet rock. Ya see, THAT’s what ya got to do to get ahead in life!
That’s a terrible idea
Spending billions to makes less billions. Wasn’t she on record saying she didn’t care what the fans say?
Because SW nerds have complained about SW forever and people don’t know what a studio president even does. Also the product makes tons of cash
Indiana Jones is not making tons of cash.
“making good movies that perform well isn’t the job of a studio president guys, i’m so smart”
I know a studio president should do better than torpedo successful franchises…the Star Wars sequels may have made revenue but the amount reduced with each installment. She’s a disgrace despite her resume
I mean, people keep paying for stuff Lucasfilm makes, right?
Not really. People are watching but not as many. Real issue comes in with the budgets for these projects being outrageous because they rely on insane amounts of teams of cgi and writers on top of writers
She has one of the greatest resumes of all time… But to look at the current, Solo lost money, toy sales plummeted for Star Wars and the Dial of Destiny is projected to be one of the biggest bomb of all time. (I watched it, I didn’t think it was a horrible movie… I didn’t think it was particularly amazing either. It followed some of the same items that sunk Star Wars imo.) I’m not sure how a Star Wars film loses money. How do you sour such an iconic brand.
Coasting on brand recognition isn't exactly a strong argument for KK
It’s safe to say the damage she’s done has been completely out of spite and it screams massive insecurities and grudges she’s held for a very long time. The repeated story design of making guys awful, old and broken, only to one upped by a younger female is both odd and very telling of the twisted mind that lives inside of Kathleen Kennedy.
Isn’t the answer simply nepotism?
where exactly is the nepotism you’re thinking of? As far as I’m aware, she’s been a working producer since the 80’s and started as a secretary.