Star Wars Stand Alone Films

So sort of piggybacking off the "Standalones are cancelled! Wait, maybe not!" stuff of last week, there is apparently something to the idea that there is major discord at Lucasfilm.

The insider chatter out there is really vague and somewhat conflicting at the moment, but the general indication is that Kathleen Kennedy and Bob Iger are really not seeing eye to eye in major way. Grace Randolph, who I would advise taking with a huge grain of salt but also advise not to discount entirely, reported a few days ago that a source told her things got so far that Iger called a massive conference call with the Lucasfilm top brass (and also Marvel and Pixar execs, for whatever reason) to try and sort out what he sees as a really bad mess. And she flat out said that her sources said Iger wants to fire Kennedy, but no one wants to take the job under those circumstances so she's in for the time being. She also said that there are basically two camps in Lucasfilm right now: the "traditionalists" that were with the company before it was sold to Disney (think Dave Filoni and people like that) and Kennedy's people, who were brought in after the sale and have no real loyalty to or understanding of Star Wars. Supposedly there are fears at Disney that Kennedy and her camp are already killing the golden goose, and they're being increasingly unfavorably compared to Marvel's run of success.

Again, major grain of salt on all those details. As far as I can tell, no one is backing up her specifics on all of that and those are the claims of a single source. That said, I have seen some others dropping hints that the strife between Iger and Kennedy is very real, though. And for what it's worth, Frank Marshall, Kennedy's husband, recently liked a tweet blaming Iger and his demands for Solo's failure. So while it may not be the full blown fire Randolph is claiming just yet, there definitely seems to be some smoke.

The common thread in all of this is the future of Star Wars with Kennedy at the helm hinges on 2019 and Episode IX's performance. We'll see. Also, there seems to be increasing speculation, informed or otherwise, that Kennedy bounces after Episode IX and Kevin Feige jumps from Marvel to Star Wars after Avengers 4 wraps up his initial vision for the MCU. But again, grain of salt.