A new rumor details there is an internal power struggle happening at Lucasfilm over control of Star Wars and the franchise’s creative direction.
The rumor comes from WDW Pro on the WDWMagic Forums.
In a post titled, “What to Watch Going Into the Earnings Report dated Monday, May 4th, WDW Pro primarily discusses the Disney Parks and ideas that Disney has been tossing around on how they might be able to reopen amidst the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
However, WDW Pro also details an internal power struggle over the control of Star Wars at Lucasfilm.
WDW Pro begins, “The ongoing battle over Lucasfilm’s direction continues, with Kathleen Kennedy and Jon Favreau factions fighting over the studio. It’s fairly well known at this point that the beef between Kennedy and Iger is real, given that Iger essentially ignored her in his memoirs.”
They continue, “It’s also hard to lose sight of how many projects Kennedy has seen fail at Lucasfilm (Star Wars Resistance, Star Wars Forces of Destiny, Star Wars Galaxy of Adventures, Solo, and the Sequel Trilogy falling in revenues with each release), while Favreau seemingly struck it out of the park with The Mandalorian — a series for Disney+ that even Iger was giving creative suggestions for and taking notes on each episode.”
WDW Pro elaborated, “Buried in the lead of Waititi directing a new Star Wars film (which Kennedy has no creative control over) was confirmation of the “female-centric” Star Wars series being helmed by former Weinstein personal assistant Headland.”
WDW Pro then details that Lucasfilm is taking a page out of the Ghostbusters 2016 and Charlie’s Angels playbook and that anyone who criticizes their direction with the show will be deemed a misogynist.
They explain, “But be ready, because it looks almost certain that a new narrative is being pushed by Kennedy loyalists in Lucasfilm… and that narrative is that Headland was ONLY a personal assistant for one year, and that being against her or her series is misogynistic, mean, and unfair.”
WDW Pro notes Disney at large doesn’t want this conflict, “Again, this is a conflict that Disney doesn’t want; they don’t want conflict over a hire that lavishly praised Weinstein, deleted hundreds of tweets at the same time as a leak about her project, and may know dirt on Iger and Eisner.”
While WDW Pro believes there is a storm brewing at Lucasfilm, they do indicate that Kennedy is well positioned to outlast it as she has done time and time again, “With all that said, Kennedy has essentially gotten her way time after time, outplaying Iger even if she has been hammered by segments of the fans, mostly by hiring and developing strong loyalty within her brand.”
Clownfish TV covered the rumor with Geeky Sparkles ripping into Kennedy loyalists alleged playbook of describing those who dare criticize Headland and her upcoming series as misogynistic.
Geeky stated, “You know what I’m going to rant for a minute. You know you can take your misogyny and stick it up your ass. Because I am f***ing tired, sorry Mom, of being told every time I turn around if I don’t like your bullshit narrative shoved down my throat or up my ass like an enema I am some kind of misogynistic, unfair racist, sexist jerk. That is childish. That is lazy. That is cowardly.
Because all you are doing taking people that are already marginalized and you are using them as damn shields. People are mad because she was a shitty choice. She was proven to have an agenda. She said crappy things on Twitter that she deleted.”
Geeky continues, “Kathleen Kennedy has completely f***ed up Star Wars beyond belief. There was no plan. Never a plan. She’s always like…I still don’t understand how the woman has a job frankly. I really don’t. Because if anybody can pinpoint to one person who messed it up, it’s her.”
She then adds, “So don’t you dare sit there and say its misogynistic, mean, and unfair because I am a woman and I think it’s a lot of crap. And you are not going to sit here and tell me again that I am an internalized misogynist because of your PR spin.”
“You know there is a lot of women and they are just sick and tired of hearing it. Star Wars fans have been women for years. It wasn’t a recent thing that women have become Star Wars fans. And there have been strong, female women in Star Wars,” Geeky says.
She concludes, “So middle finger to you. You better not spin this new thing because if you don’t agree as misogynistic, mean and unfair again. Oh look at how creative, and original you are. Sorry, but I’m sick of it. As a woman I’m so sick of being used as a shield and then being told I’m not allowed to have an opinion other than the opinion they tell me I should have.”
Criticism of Headland as showrunner for the series has already been rebuffed by the likes of people like John Campea. Towards the end of April, Campea responded to the then-rumors of Headland taking over the show calling her critics “man-babies” in an obvious reference to Rian Johnson.
He stated, “Now listen, listen. I can already hear the manbabies crying about, ‘Why is it female-centric? There is an agenda?’ Let’s just put that to bed and not touch on this again shall we? They’ve already got three other series that are all male lead.”
He added, “That means right now, if this comes out and it’s only four shows, that’s 75% of them male lead, they got one that’s going to happen to be a female lead one. Deal with it. And just move on. Can we move on from that? Thank you.”
However, Campea’s co-host Erin Cummings would rebuff him and break down why the criticism was valid and why she had issue with how the rumor was circulated.
It would not surprise me in the least if Lucasfilm and Kennedy loyalists do attempt this strategy to deflect criticism of Headland’s series. We’ve seen it play out throughout Hollywood. As I previously mentioned Ghostbusters 2016 used it. More recently we saw it deployed with Terminator: Dark Fate and Charlie’s Angels.
The films and studios that deploy this strategy don’t tend to succeed.
Related: Star Wars Book Downplays Luke Skywalker’s Heroics: “Jyn Did Everything That Mattered”
Star Wars is already hurting with the absolutely horrible Disney sequel series and how it treated many of the iconic Star Wars characters. In fact the failure of the sequel trilogy and more specifically The Last Jedi already created a box office bomb in Solo. The Star Wars brand is bleeding fans.
There’s only so much more it can take before it is broken like Batman’s back after confronting Bane.