Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award winner and an eight-time Academy Award-nominee, Kathleen Kennedy has been President of Lucasfilm since 2012. She has been at the front of the rebirth of Star Wars. She has produced all of the sequels and is the executive producer for The Mandalorian.
Her many accolades in her 38 years as a producer include (for those not paying attention to her resume of over 100 movies):
- Jurassic Park (The original trilogy)
- Lincoln
- ET: The Extra-Terrestrial
- The Sixth Sense
- The Back to the Future Trilogy
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit
- The Goonies
- Poltergeist
- Gremlins
- War Horse
- Schindler’s List
Kathleen Kennedy and JJ Abrams photo courtesy of imdb.com
The successes of the sequels and spinoffs still don’t give some fans much faith in the future of Lucasfilm under the producing eye of Kennedy. In a poll taken on our Facebook page, 47% said they were not confident in the future of Star Wars under her thumb while 53% said they were confident in the future success of the franchise under her as president. The poll was answered by nearly 6600 people making the difference between confident and not confident in Lucasfilm’s future a small group of 396 people.
Fans are divided as you can tell! The division is due to the results of the sequels and spin offs. Kennedy is doing pretty good as far as the movies and shows that came before had. We’ll start with the most recent movie. Rise of Skywalker got a Rotten Tomatoes score of 51%. Audiences of course like it better than the critics giving this installment a 86%. If you compare it to one of the worst films from before Kennedy took over as president, The Clone Wars scored a tiny 18% on the tomatometer and 39% with audiences. The Mandalorian is the only thing that critics agree on with a score of 93%! The child is definitely part of why that is the case! He is too cute to not be popular.
The Mandalorian and The Child photo courtesy of Lucasfilm
Now let’s check out box office totals! Totals have been adjusted for inflation.
- The Force Awakens: Domestic Total $965.5 million
- Rogue One: Domestic Total $539.7 million
- The Last Jedi: Domestic Total $649.6 million
- Solo: A Star Wars Story: Domestic Total $218.5 million
- Rise of Skywalker: Domestic Total $515.2 million
The total for all Star Wars films produced by Kennedy equals $2,888,500,000.00 in just eight years.
photo courtesy of Lucasfilm
I would definitely say that Kennedy is doing pretty good if you look at the stats. The future of Star Wars is safe in her hands as producer.
We will continue doing weekly polls on the Facebook page, which welcomes all participants to let their voices be heard. Be sure to go check it out!
