The Star Wars galaxy remains to be reeling from the behind-the-scenes shakeup of Kathleen Kennedy’s exit from Lucasfilm final night time. In an exit interview with Deadline stuffed with intriguing hints concerning the galaxy far, distant’s cinematic future, Kennedy additionally touched on one long-simmering potential venture, and the legacy of a darkish aspect to Star Wars‘ final decade of film making within the course of: the potential return of Rian Johnson.
Simply earlier than The Final Jedi launched in 2017, Lucasfilm introduced a new trilogy of films set to be helmed by the director, blissfully unaware that the film, and Johnson’s lovingly iconoclastic interpretation of Star Wars, was about to spark a tradition struggle that continues to influence Star Wars and tradition at massive to this present day. Within the lengthy years since, each Johnson and Lucasfilm alike have stayed noncommittal, yet vaguely optimistic that the movies could occur in some unspecified time in the future—by no means saying sufficient to outright scrap them however by no means saying sufficient to point that they might come any time quickly, because the studio endlessly iterated on its moviemaking plans.
“As soon as he made the Netflix deal and went off to start out doing the Knives Out films, that has occupied an enormous quantity of his time. That’s the opposite factor that occurs right here,” Kennedy stated of the long-delayed plans to have Johnson return. “After Shawn [Levy] and I began speaking about Star Wars, Stranger Issues kicks in and he was utterly consumed for some time by that. That’s what occurred with Rian.”
However then the outgoing president turned extra candid—extra candid than maybe anybody concerned in Star Wars has been about what she believed was the precise cause for holding off Johnson’s comeback. “I do imagine he acquired spooked by the web negativity. I believe Rian made the most effective Star Wars motion pictures. He’s a superb filmmaker and he acquired spooked,” Kennedy acknowledged.
“That is the tough half. When folks come into this area, I’ve each filmmaker and actors say to me, ‘What’s going to occur?’ They’re a bit scared.”
Though Star Wars‘ brush with fandom toxicity didn’t start with The Final Jedi—not even in that toxicity’s up to date tradition struggle kind, given a number of the retrograde backlash to the mere existence of Rey and Finn in The Power Awakens previous to it—the film sparked a firestorm the franchise remains to be but to flee from virtually ten years later. Time and time once more, tasks have weathered bad-faith assaults from the cultural proper, and expertise from Kelly Marie Tran, to Moses Ingram, to virtually the complete cast of The Acolyte have all mentioned the bigoted harassment they’ve endured merely for being a part of Star Wars, and the way at occasions Lucasfilm and Disney have did not adequately curtail it.
“I’m sincere, particularly with the ladies that come into this area as a result of they unfairly get focused. I don’t attempt to sugarcoat it,” Kennedy stated of how Lucasfilm has handled this poisonous underbelly to Star Wars‘ viewers. “And I emphasize that it’s a really small group of individuals, with loud megaphones. I actually don’t imagine that it’s nearly all of the followers…. You may’t make it go away. All we are able to do is put our heads down and do the work and imagine that we’re doing the very best we are able to, telling the very best story we are able to. And if any person will get actually nervous about it and doesn’t wish to do it, I say, then don’t do it as a result of I can’t inform you this gained’t occur.”
Whereas it’s not a definitive nail within the coffin on Johnson’s Star Wars trilogy, it’s the closest anybody has come—both from Lucasfilm’s aspect or Johnson’s—to giving an sincere cause as to why the venture is unlikely to see the sunshine of day. However till that nail is pushed in for good, there’s nonetheless hope for braveness to prevail over concern.
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