Kathleen Kennedy on Daisy Ridley, Kevin Feige, and Star Wars’ Return to the Movies

Last week was a giant one for Star Wars, to say the least. 

During the Star Wars Celebration in London, Lucasfilm and Disney announced not one, not two, but three new live-action Star Wars films, the first official confirmation of any upcoming Star Wars features following 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker. What’s more, the directors behind them are James Mangold, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (whose project will include the return of Daisy Ridley as Rey), and Dave Filoni, who’s arguably been the most influential voice in Star Wars TV series since The Clone Wars.

But TV, where Star Wars’ focus has been since the launch of Disney+, got its day in the spotlight too, with first looks of The Acolyte, Skeleton Crew, and Ahsoka shown to attendees of the convention, as well as updates from the casts and creatives behind The Mandalorian and Andor. 

At the center of all of this is Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, who was the one to announce the three new movies on the ExCel London stage on Friday. Just moments after the big Lucasfilm Studio Showcase, Kennedy sat down for an exclusive interview with IGN to talk about her work with Filoni and Jon Favreau (you can read our exclusive sitdown with them here), the three new movies, her ambitions for the future of Star Wars, and a whole lot more. 

I think people are really excited for Dave Filoni to get a feature film. So what made you both decide that it was time to make that jump for him?

Kathleen Kennedy: It hasn’t been something that we just decided, actually, I feel like it’s been something we’ve been working toward and he’s been working toward for almost a decade. So this is a very evolving process. Nothing happens overnight. But it’s really thrilling to see him take this step.

As we all know, he’s had such a big impact on the Star Wars universe and its characters. So can you tell me if it’ll feature any characters that we know and love?

Kathleen Kennedy: Well, it will, because he’s obviously taking all the work that he’s been doing in animation and now in television with Jon Favreau, and he’s moving some of those storylines into the feature space. So there’s going to be a lot people will recognize.

And I imagine it might tie into some of the shows that we saw today.

Kathleen Kennedy: Yeah, that’s the intention.

I also want to talk about James Mangold. Did you see his work on Indiana Jones 5 and think, “all right, this guy needs a Star War”?

Kathleen Kennedy: Well, I’ve been following Jim for a long time. I mean, his work has been consistently so good. And certainly when he did Indy 5, it was clear that he’s a real filmmaker and he loves movies, and he loves Star Wars, he always has. And he’s constantly been in my ear, “Hey, maybe, maybe, maybe.” And then he came up with this idea and we sat down and talked with Dave about it and Carrie and all of us, and agreed that this would be a really good next step.

And of course, it was so exciting to have Daisy back today, that was huge.

Kathleen Kennedy: That’s huge.

So what point in Rey’s life are we going to rejoin her?

Kathleen Kennedy: Well, we’re 15 years out from Rise of Skywalker, so we’re post-war, post-First Order, and the Jedi are in disarray, and there’s a lot of discussion around who are the Jedi, what are they doing, what’s the state of the galaxy? And she’s attempting to rebuild the Jedi Order based on the books, based on what she promised Luke. So that’s where we’re going.

And you mentioned Luke, and I think he almost seemed like almost a cautionary tale [for the Jedi]  in the most recent trilogy. Will we see any of that play with Rey at all?

Kathleen Kennedy: I don’t know if we’ll spend a lot of time in flashbacks or Force ghosts or things like that, but certainly the spirit of what he represents to her is going to be significant.

And as you mentioned, it’s 15 years after the Rise of Skywalker. So the other two films, do you see them more as standalone movies?

Kathleen Kennedy: Oh yeah. When we say standalone now, a lot of the storytelling, as you can see in the work that we’ve been doing in television, we started as a standalone idea and then it’s grown. And I think the potential of that could happen in these different eras of the timeline. But I don’t want to make a commitment to that until we really get into it and see how it plays.

I want to talk a little bit more about that. I think the beginning of Disney+ was kind of the beginning of a new era for Star Wars. So what have you learned about putting out Star Wars content in the past three, four years?

Kathleen Kennedy: I think it was huge, actually, almost by accident. Because, interestingly enough, it’s a format in which George was inspired when he first did Star Wars, serialized storytelling. And so when we got into the television space and realized we had this kind of long form storytelling that we could get into, it was really conducive to Star Wars. It’s given us a lot of flexibility, opportunity to experiment. We knew we needed to introduce new characters, new storylines, and we could do that without the huge expectation of a movie. And now we’re ready to move back into the movie space and it’s really exciting.

And for all the movies that we did hear about today, we do know that there are some that have been shelved.

Kathleen Kennedy: Well, they haven’t been shelved, those things haven’t been shelved. Development is a complicated long-term process. Some people, we’re dealing with scheduling because obviously really talented people are working. So it’s often not a shelving, it’s just, is it ready? That’s really what it comes down to.

“You don’t want people to feel like they have to see everything in order to step into Star Wars.

I’m thinking about projects like Rogue Squadron and Kevin Feige’s project. So could those still see the light of day?

Kathleen Kennedy: Well, Kevin Feige’s project was something announced in the press, or I suppose fandom, but nothing ever got developed. We never discussed an idea. As everybody knows, Kevin’s a huge Star Wars fan, and if he did come up with something, I would be all ears. But that’s never really happened. So, it’s not an abandoned project. It just didn’t happen.

Now, Rogue Squadron, any chance there?

Kathleen Kennedy: Rogue Squadron, that definitely is something that we still talk about. Whether it’s a movie or whether it ends up being in the series space, that’s definitely something.

We’ve talked a lot about movies, but I want to talk about the really exciting shows that we got a glimpse of today. So you have Ahsoka, you have Acolyte, you have Skeleton Crew. What do you hope each of these brings to your current Star Wars universe?

Kathleen Kennedy: What we’re seeing, and Dave talked a lot about this, we’re seeing the opportunity for fans to find where their entry point is in Star Wars. There’s a lot of things now going back almost 50 years. So you don’t want people to feel like they have to see everything in order to step into Star Wars. And we also want to look at the generational aspect of Star Wars, it’s always been something that’s been passed down.

So something like Skeleton Crew we’re really excited about because it’s aimed at younger kids, but will still bring in the fans, still bring in adults. But that’s an opportunity for a kid that so many of us relate to that, a kid that can step into Star Wars and make it their own. And I think that’s the beauty of the storytelling that’s going on now, is that everybody can kind of find where their entry point is.

Speaking of Skeleton Crew, I mean, that was so exciting to see all the directors laid out like that. What kind of made you want to take that approach with Skeleton Crew where you find so many different voices and put them in this one show?

Kathleen Kennedy: We’ve been doing that a lot. We did that with Ahsoka, we’ve been doing that with Mandalorian. There’s a lot of different voices that come in. Obviously Jon and Dave really structure what Mandalorian and Ahsoka is, but when we knew we had Jon Watts and Jon Watts’ knows all of us, that kind of continuity was able to exist. And it’s just great to bring in Star Wars fans who are also great directors, and they may have an idea here and there that shifts a point of view, and that’s exciting. That’s what we want.

I was excited to see more of the Acolyte, which has been one of the more mysterious projects. But you said you’ve seen four episodes and you were blown away. What about them blew you away?

Kathleen Kennedy: Leslye, her storytelling. I was blown away by just the scale and the size. And as you could see from what you saw in the room, it’s very compelling. She’s doing some really original things and yet completely grounded in Star Wars.

And then you have Ahsoka, which is of course, taking such a beloved animation character and taking them into live action. Do you guys think that that’s something you might do more of?

Kathleen Kennedy: I wouldn’t do it without Dave. I mean, Dave created so much of what was in Clone Wars and Rebels, and that extension of that storytelling is something that’s Dave’s. And certainly working with him to try to evolve that into whether we do with live action, whether it’s a series or whether we go into features, that’s something we would do with him.

And you guys have really played with kind of intersecting these shows. You’ve had the Mandalorian and Boba Fett, and we had a Thrawn mention in Mandalorian just now. I mean, is that something you might play with more or do you think these are going to be more standalone projects?

Kathleen Kennedy: Well, that’s really building toward what Dave’s doing in the feature space. Very intentionally.

Going back to these movies, how far along are they in development?

Kathleen Kennedy: We’re pretty far along. These are things, as you can imagine, certainly looking at what Dave’s been doing with Ahsoka, that’ll be at least six, seven years building to what it is we’re going to be doing in a movie. As far as Sharmeen, we’ve been working on that for a couple years already. And with what Jim’s doing, Jim and I, because we had the benefit of doing Indiana Jones together, there was a lot of discussion about what that story is. What’s great about Jim, is he’s a writer director, much like David is, so he can move that along at a pretty fast pace. So everything’s kind of moving along. We may have a really nice situation where we have all of these things ready to go, and we can take our time figuring out when we make them.

I think Star Wars is kind of a genre unto itself at this point. Are there any kind of genres, though, that you want to play more with within Star Wars?

Kathleen Kennedy: Well, I think we’ve been doing that. Yeah. I mean, obviously George started that. So specifically we’re looking at Westerns with what Mandalorian is. Dave is very influenced by Kurosawa and Japanese films. And I would say that that influences the tone of Ahsoka probably more than it does with Mandalorian. And then Amblin movies, Goonies, that kind of thing, those fun kid adventure stories that’s very much influencing Skeleton Crew. And then the spy thriller with Tony Gilroy in Andor was very much in the vein of Borne and the things that he’s done. So very distinct genres.

Donald Glover recently talked about the Lando series. Can you give us any update on that? Is it still happening?

Kathleen Kennedy: I can just tell you it’s still happening, and he’s very excited about it.

Before we wrap up, I just want to see if there’s any major hope that you want that you want to strive for in this kind of new era of Star Wars that you just announced today?

Kathleen Kennedy: As I said, I think quality is always everything we want to tell resonating stories that really speak to what Star Wars is. I don’t want it, and none of us want it, to become everything else. We want it to be something that continues to live up to the expectation that fans have, and that’s the most important thing to all of us.

Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.