George Lucas Retiring, Names Kathleen Kennedy As LucasFilms Successor
George Lucas has already announced his intention to retire in the near future and today he took another step closer to ending his professional career in film. The Star Wars director announced today that Kathleen Kenneday will become the co-chair of LucasFilm.
Kennedy said:
“It’s my birthday soon, so this is quite the birthday president as well as a real honor…. What George has created is so iconic, and it’ll be my job to carry on the existing franchises and look into the possibility for new ones… No one really knows where the (movie) business is going, but Lucasfilm is perfectly set up to move into the future.”
USA Today reports that Kennedy has been a producing partner of Steven Spielberg for decades and helped create the Jurrasic Park and Indiana Jones movies. Kennedy said that her partnership with Spielberg (also a close friend of Lucas) will end once she steps into the co-chair position at Lucasfilms, but since they are both filmmakers, she hopes that she will be able to work with the legendary director again.
Kennedy said: “I’m still a filmmaker and he’s a filmmaker, so hopefully down the road we can work together again.”
Spielberg said that he was happy for his producing partner, saying: “Kathy has been a member of both our families going into a fourth decade, so it does not feel like she is going to a galaxy far, far away.”
Lucas said that he is planning on retiring from the movie business soon but he wanted to make sure that LucasFilms continues to be a player in the industry.
“I’ve spent my life building Lucasfilm, and as I shift my focus into other directions, I wanted to make sure it was in the hands of someone equipped to carry my vision into the future.”
