Yahoo News Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy weighs in on the future of Star Wars TV
There was lots of Force-related movie news to come out of Star Wars Celebration in London last weekend. At the Lucasfilm studio presentation, president Kathleen Kennedy announced that there would be three new Star Wars films heading our way, each set in a different era. Kennedy then followed that up by revealing exclusively to EW that the opening crawl would be returning for all three films.
But while there was lots of excitement over the return of Daisy Ridley's Rey, a big-screen meet-up featuring characters from different shows set in The Mandalorian timeline, and a look waaaaaaay back at the very first Jedi, there was also an abundance of casting news and trailers on the TV side.
New footage of Andor, Ahsoka, Skeleton Crew, and The Acolyte was shown to convention attendees, who were also treated to some exciting cast additions. EW spoke to Kennedy after the panel to get her take on other possible TV initiatives, including adapting some of the recent High Republic books, the latest animation plans, and whether we could see possibly see another round of Obi-Wan Kenobi.
We also asked Kennedy the same thing we inquired of Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni: whether there had been talks about a live action version of the popular Star Wars Jedi video game series. Her answer may leave you having a bad feeling about this.
Jeff Spicer/Getty Kathleen Kennedy at Star Wars Celebration 2023
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You all had The Acolyte here at Star Wars Celebration and this is your first show set in the High Republic era. That's a pretty long era and you all have all these High Republic novels covering hundreds of years. Do you plan to keep exploring that era and is that a space where we're gonna start to see more on-screen offerings?
KATHLEEN KENNEDY: It could be, because one of the things we talked about in publishing was, how we could begin to incubate certain ideas. And in the case of the High Republic, there's been some wonderful storytelling that's gone on there. It's not necessarily what Leslye [Headland] is doing with The Acolyte, but it certainly opens up the possibilities for being able to tell stories in that space.
Kate Green/Lucasfilm Ltd. The cast of 'Star Wars: The Acolyte' drop by Star Wars Celebration to preview the High Republic era-set show
What about telling stories from some of your other mediums? You have the new Star Wars Jedi: Survivor video game coming out. A lot of people would love to see Cal Kestis and the Mantis crew make the jump to live action. How much do you all talk about that?
I've seen a lot of chatter online about that. [Laughs] It could be really interesting. It's not something that's front and center right at the moment, but what's interesting in the company that we do is that everybody across all these different lines of business, we all talk to one another. That often doesn't happen in situations like this, but because so many of the people at Lucasfilm, are used to working together, we're very transparent about what the storytelling is that's going on — whether it's in the streaming space or the movie space, or books, animation games, whatever it is. Eventually, it'll be some kind of immersive entertainment.
There are many things we talk about just in terms of how we use technology with ILM inside the company. So this constant cross pollination of ideas to determine just exactly what stories move into the movie space, what stories move into the TV space — you never know, because the creative process is very similar in all of those different spaces. And so you don't have a crystal ball. You see what works, and then if it does, you draw from that.
Respawn Entertainment Cameron Monaghan returns as Jedi Cal Kestis, now five years older, in 'Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.'
How do you all make the determination in terms of what's a story that goes on the big screen in theaters, and what's a story that goes on Disney+ in a longer series format?
I think your question is one of the most interesting ones facing many of us who are doing high end premiere television, because there are so many things we can do in streaming now where we do massive effects. We really increase the scale and size of these stories. And I certainly find myself personally looking at, well, what is that distinction that moves something onto the big screen versus the smaller screen? And it's usually the intimacy of the character-driven stories that you try to really push in the television space, and then the spectacle that you can still preserve in the movie space.
Let's talk about the animation front for a second, because it's proven so fertile. There is all these Clone Wars and Rebels characters we are now seeing move into live action. Is that something in terms of your animation arm that you're looking to increase?
Visions is one of the most interesting initiatives we have right now because we're working with animation studios all around the world, and a lot of different talent — in addition to the amazing talent we have in house.
What's interesting is all these different art forms really are merging in certain ways. So there's a lot of what we do in special effects and things that we're doing in animation where there's a connection between the two, and what that may end up creating down the road could be really exciting and something we've never really seen before. It's another great thing about Lucasfilm because we have the technology piece inside of the creative community in our company. We're all working together to try to drive that.
Lucasfilm Ltd. Ewan Mcgregor and Vivien Lyra Blair in 'Obi-Wan Kenobi'
I asked you before Obi-Wan Kenobi aired if there was any chance of a season 2, and you said it was a one season story but to never say never. It's a year later, so I'm going to ask you again: Any chance for more Obi-Wan?
You know, I always hesitate to say, "No, we won't do anything more with Obi-Wan Kenobi." Maybe what we end up doing is something that gets incorporated into some of the other stories we're doing, or eventually into a movie. Who knows? But right now it's still our standalone limited series. We have no plans for expansion right now.
To hear interviews with the casts of The Mandalorian, Andor, Ahsoka, The Acolyte, and more, check out EW's weekly Star Wars podcast, Dagobah Dispatch.
