Legendary producer Kathleen Kennedy was appointed President of LucasFilm back in 2012 and since then has breathed new life into the science-fiction franchise. 2015's Star Wars: The Force Awakens was a huge hit with audiences and shattered countless records, then both the film's sequel as well as the new anthology banner introduced with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story continued that trend, all receiving audience and critical acclaim as well as amassing a box-office receipt of approximately $4.5 Billion.
Despite this success, however, Ankler are claiming that Kennedy, who has also become the lightning rod of scorn for those people who have been disproportionally enraged by the way the franchise has been moving forward, will be stepping down from the position later this year.
"While Kathleen Kennedy worked wonders relaunching this property from the abyss of the Lucas prequel trilogy and turning it into a bigger than ever all-devouring cultural force, there has to be more than some thought that it's time for new blood at the helm. The talk out there is of a September changing of the guards. We'll see."
The rumor comes in the wake of not only Solo: A Star Wars Story's lackluster box-office performance but also as "fan" ire reaches an all-time high, only this week causing Star Wars: The Last Jedi star Kelly Marie Tran to leave Instagram. Last year's The Last Jedi was a turning point for discourse surrounding the franchise, with genuine criticism all too often mixed with a level of aggressive toxicity and sexist bigotry seemingly more extreme than most genre franchises.
While this division detrimentally affected the culture of the fandom the film itself still proved to be a huge success and crossed over $1 Billion at the worldwide box office. In fact, Ron Howard's Solo has been the only commercial misfire under Kennedy's stewardship with the majority of analysts believing this to be the cause of poor marketing and release schedule, not the "killing of the franchise" by Rian Johnson or Kathleen Kennedy's supposed "SJW agenda" as some would like to claim.
It's not impossible to believe that after six years and four movies Kennedy would want to continue her varied and historic career elsewhere, but one would imagine she would at least stay until the completion of 2019's Star Wars: Episode IX. Combine that with the fact this report doesn't cite any actual sources and I'd say take this one with a Death Star-sized lump of salt.
What do you think? Do you believe Kennedy will step down? Who would you like to see as LucasFilm President? Leave your thoughts below.