Star Wars: Reports Dave Filoni set to take over from Kathleen Kennedy at Lucasfilm

Big changes are imminent in the Star Wars universe.

Head of Lucasfilm Kathleen Kennedy, whose pending resignation has been anticipated for some time, is expected to step down within a fortnight, according to Puck News.

The person slated to replace her in the top job will be Dave Filoni, a hugely popular figure among the fandom. But Filoni is a creative, so he’ll be teamed with the president and general manager of Lucasfilm Business, Lynwen Brennan.

Filoni is currently the chief creative officer of Star Wars but as president or co-president of Lucasfilm, he’ll have final creative decisions on all projects, including other franchises such as Indiana Jones and Willow, as well company units such visual effects powerhouse Industrial Light & Magic.

Filoni is something of a hero to Star Wars fans given his long involvement in the franchise, ever since George Lucas hired him in the mid-2000s from Nickelodeon where he was an animator on the likes of Kim Possible and Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Filoni’s first projects, which earnt him the adoration of diehard fans, was to create The Clone Wars animated series and directing The Clone Wars feature film.

The cowboy hat-wearing Filoni has, from the start, considered himself one of the fans first. He told the Los Angeles Times in 2008, “I go to the conventions and talk to the fans and I tell them, ‘No, you don’t understand. I am one of you.’ And I really am.”

He worked on a raft of Star Wars animations including Rebels, Forces of Destiny and Resistance.

In 2019, he and John Favreau co-created The Mandalorian streaming series, the most recognisable and commercially successful title of the post-Skywalker Star Wars era, which has been marked by aborted film projects and underwhelming streaming shows, with the exception of the truly excellent Andor.

Filoni co-wrote and produced the upcoming Mandalorian & Grogu feature film, the first Star Wars cinema release since The Rise of Skywalker in 2019.

He was elevated to the Lucasfilm executive ranks in 2020 and promoted to chief creative officer in 2023.

Filoni’s reputation among many in the fandom stands in contrast to Kennedy, a sometimes-controversial executive that has been the target of discontent from the more vocal elements of the fanbase.

Kennedy, a long-time producer and collaborator of Steven Spielberg, joined Lucasfilm in the months before Lucas sold the business to Disney in 2012. She became president after the acquisition and has become a figurehead to fans unhappy with what they claimed was a more “woke” direction under the House of Mouse’s ownership.

Some of those fans objected to the centring of female and diverse leads in the 2015-2019 Star Wars movie trilogy and subsequent streaming shows, and stars such as John Boyega, Kelly Marie Tran and Moses Ingram were subjected to vicious racist trolling.

Setting aside reprehensible behaviour from some aspects of the fandom, Kennedy’s reign has also been patchy thanks to inconsistent output from its film division.

While the J.J. Abrams-led trilogy of The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, as well as the 2016 spin-off Rogue One were commercially successful, collectively grossing more than $US5.5 billion, the theatrical business has yet to release a film this decade.

Mandalorian & Grogu, when it comes out in May, will the first and is a sequel to a streaming show, while Star Wars: Starfighter, starring Ryan Gosling, has only recently finished filming.

In the intervening years, there were a series of announced but then cancelled or stalled movies.

In 2018, the Game of Thrones TV series creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were tapped to make a trilogy but that deal fell apart a year later.

Rian Johnson, who directed The Last Jedi, was also supposed to make another Star Wars trilogy, while other big names such as Patty Jenkins, Damon Lindelof, James Mangold, Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige, and even Guillermo del Toro, all had movie projects at various stages of development, but none eventuated.

There was also to be a Steven Knight-penned movie that would bring back Daisy Ridley’s Rey to the screen, and Adam Driver revealed he and Steven Soderbergh had pitched a Ben Solo movie that was rejected.

Star Wars fans will be hoping that a Filoni reign at the very top of Lucasfilm will be more fruitful.