Kathleen Kennedy & Deadline Read Puck for Filth: 'I Am Not Retiring'

Earlier this week, Puck’s Matthew Belloni reported that Kathleen Kennedy was leaving Lucasfilm by the end of the year, prompting a fury of speculation about her potential replacement and cheers from sad dorks, who’ve now spent a decade crying about yucky girls and Black people being in their Star Wars. It’s a miracle they’ve survived such hardship.

Well, hold your horses. Kennedy has set the record straight in an exclusive interview with Deadline writer Mike Fleming Jr., who spends several paragraphs clocking Belloni’s weird obsession on this front. Here’s a taste:

I thought I’d seen it all in trade journalism, but the piranha-like frenzy on Kathleen Kennedy and the successor speculation that followed Matt Belloni’s Puck report that Disney was putting her out to pasture is a new one on me. Belloni for years has been beating on Kennedy like she owes him money, and this week he reported Kennedy was retiring. I recall he essentially did the same thing more than a year ago, and yet here she still is.

So, what’s really happening? For starters, Kennedy is not retiring. “I will die making movies,” are her exact words. As for her time at Lucasfilm, that will eventually come to a close, but not anytime soon. She is actively involved in not just The Mandalorian movie that’s set for theaters next year, but Shawn Levy’s Star Wars movie starring Ryan Gosling, which is full speed ahead. That film will be a standalone story that takes place roughly five years after The Rise of Skywalker. She also confirmed Simon Kinberg’s Rey trilogy is moving quickly. “We’re absolutely rolling fast and furiously. That has gone exceptionally well, and he’s literally going to script as we speak.”

Long story short, Kennedy will be sticking around Star Wars for a while, but she could eventually fall back and make way for a successor that she’ll be around to mentor. After this interview, I would put good money on that person being Dave Filoni.

In a very on-brand move, Belloni has already responded in the latest Puck newsletter, and he was not happy:

I don’t usually descend into lame back-and-forths with trade reporters, but this one is particularly amusing. Deadline’s Mike Fleming, who never saw a movie producer’s anal cavity he couldn’t burrow inside, did a hilariously sycophantic interview with Kathleen Kennedy after I broke the news on Monday that the Lucasfilm president will announce her exit by the end of the year. It was… quite something.

Addressing the news, Kennedy basically confirmed it, saying that she and Disney’s Bob Iger and Alan Bergman have a plan for succession at Lucasfilm, with “every intention of making an announcement months or a year down the road.” Which is exactly what I reported. (It’ll be months, not a year.) But instead of acknowledging the confirmation, Fleming attacked me personally and bizarrely claimed I had reported that Kennedy “was retiring.” Stupid.

Sure, Belloni sussed out that Kennedy is eventually stepping down, but that’s a given. She even admits as much herself because any competent studio head is going to have a plan for succession. “We’ve been talking about it, as I said, nonstop for the last couple of years because for obvious reasons — I’m not going to be here forever. George asked me 13 years ago to step in, and now I’m looking at who’s going to replace me.”

As for Belloni reporting that Kennedy is imminently leaving Lucasfilm to work more with her husband Frank Marshall, that’s clearly not happening as she’s heavily involved with at least two Star Wars movies and a potential trilogy.