Rumors surfaced this week that Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy might step down from company leadership in the aftermath of Solo: A Star Wars Story’s box office failure. This comes amid rampaging racism, sexism, and other extreme toxic behavior from a segment of mostly male (and mostly white) fans who’ve taken to harassing female actors and artists for existing. This is all part of a larger bigoted backlash of complaints against Star Wars for incorporating people of color and other types of diversity into the previously predominantly white male storytelling.
Mindless screams of “keep your politics out of my entertainment” abound from that corner of fandom ignorant of the most basic facts about what the films say and represent (the Empire’s designs and titles were heavily influenced by fascism and Nazi imagery, the Ewok uprising was a veiled commentary about the Vietnam War, and the entire concept is about rebelling against authoritarianism and fighting back against oppression and slavery).
This is the same group of fans, remember, whose entire rant is rooted in their own personal politics and a desire to see their personal preferences projected onto the screen while nobody else is entitled to the same right or representation. That enraged reactionaries want to deny everybody else equal representation while demanding their own right to be heard and obeyed is hardly new or shocking, of course. These types of vulgar fans always existed, because fandom is just a portion of the population as a whole, and the population always includes angry self-entitled bigots.
In other words, it’s fine to ignore them and to not care what they want or what they say, and to deny them the myopic whitewashed world they demand. They don’t deserve representation of their ideas, since their ideas are backward, hateful, and devoid of merit in the first place. If you scream in anger about seeing other people represented, if you harass and insult and threaten marginalized people for daring to exist and to appear in movies, then you and your beliefs have no place in modern storytelling or modern society (except as villains to be defeated and cast aside forever).
While those racist and sexist reactionary fans probably did boycott a couple of the movies in theaters, they are too small and insignificant a part of the overall theatrical audience to make any real difference, and they certainly didn’t cause the failure or underperformance of any new Star Wars movies, however much they posture and pretend otherwise. So there is no reason to think Solo or other Star Wars movies failed because they didn’t pander enough to delicate sensibilities of a loud corner of angry white boys. Nor is there reason to think future Star Wars movies should try to win over that racist, sexist crowd.
(And before anyone starts complaining, let me point out that if you aren’t one of the people engaging in the bad behavior, then clearly that means none of what I’m saying is talking about you. Nor is anything I’ve said a claim that disliking Solo or other new Star Wars movies inherently makes you a racist or a sexist — I’m talking about the people who are behaving like racists and sexists, and how their complaints are invalid. So, if you didn’t act that way then you have nothing to complain about regarding my article.)
The refrain against Kathleen Kennedy is not merely coming from the toxic segment of fans, and many people who have argued for a need for different leadership at Lucasfilm do so in the context of behind-the-scenes decisions and changes during the past four Star Wars films. They point out a lot of filmmakers have been hired and fired, or have had their work redone or “fixed” by someone else, and that there has been a consistent refrain about problems and troubled productions for several of the films so far.
This argument also notes that if you are president of a company, then you have to own the decisions and own the outcomes, good or bad, and in that spirit Kennedy has had one film (The Last Jedi) slightly underperform and another (Solo) outright fail. That’s half of the new films, they say, and so when all is said and done the future health of the Star Wars brand requires new leadership.
However, I think that viewpoint overemphasizes the wrong things while underemphasizing the most important things. And I think it exists in a larger evolving context of reactions toward Star Wars that include rising sexism and intolerance, and while there are plenty of arguments for changing leadership that are unrelated to the sexism and intolerance, we can’t ignore when those terrible negative social contexts carry over and become at least part of the narrative and push for new leadership. I believe that is happening in the growing chorus of calls for removing Kathleen Kennedy, one of the most powerful and successful women at the head of a major studio.
Despite the constant refrain of negativity directed at Kathleen Kennedy, Lucasfilm delivered three critically successful Star Wars pictures in three back-to-back years, earning A grades from audiences and a combined $4.4+ billion in global box office. It doesn’t matter what you think about the process of director selections, the changes made during various productions, or other aspects of how the sausage gets made that we regularly hear about nowadays — the bottom line is the bottom line, and Kennedy has overseen a remarkably successful (at every level) franchise revival.
If we’d been aware of all of the arguments, tensions, and troubled productions during the original Star Wars trilogy, would fans and media have called for studio heads and producers to be removed from the franchise? Solo is the first real failure of the entire Star Wars franchise, but let’s be clear — the film still received positive critical reception and an A- grade from audiences, so it’s failure is strictly financial.
But financial is what matters in business, of course. Solo is a financial blemish on what had been a consistently successful cinematic brand, so it’s fair to say studio leadership has to take responsibility, as long as we also give plenty of credit to that same leadership for their remarkable success with the other three films.
Should Episode IX be another home run to the tune of $1+ billion with positive reviews and audience A grades, no amount of “yeah but” argument can diminish the fact Kennedy oversaw the revival of one of the most important and successful franchises in history, and delivered four billion-plus acclaimed hits in a five-year period, and just one financial failure that earned positive reviews and viewer grades. Those are not the reputation and results of a studio head needing removal.
Kathleen Kennedy took risks, made changes, and delivered a five-film slate of Star Wars revival films that will have generated around $6 billion over five well-reviewed and well-liked movies, if Episode IX manages to top $1 billion as I fully expect will happen. That’s a record any studio should be proud of, and it matters more than all of the rumors and gossip about behind-the-scenes production troubles.
So if Kennedy’s leadership and decision-making were largely responsible for the problems that transpired during Solo’s production, and if that in turn is directly to blame for the box office failure of the film, then I’d point out Kennedy’s leadership and decision-making were also responsible for how the other films turned out too, and it’s definitely worth the trade-off when it results in the blockbuster results those films received.
And if the greatness of the original trilogy and the financial success of those original films matters, then so too does the fact they all had a lot of trouble behind the scenes along the way. Keep in mind The Empire Strikes Back suffered a decline of about 20% from the original film’s box office, and received decidedly mixed reviews at the time. Imagine how that might’ve played out if the Internet existed back then — “that’s what you get for shoehorning in a black man like Lando!” or “fire George Lucas” or “Tie-fighters dropping bombs that FALL in space? Fail!” Such could have been the intolerant, shortsighted view of angry fans and clickbait press.
What do you really know about Kathleen Kennedy, by the way? In case you are unaware of her career highlights, let me offer you a very brief (and admittedly woefully inadequate) summary: Kennedy studied film in school, and worked hands-on in TV production. As a producer and assistant she worked on a wide range of terrific successful films such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, War of the Worlds, and Lincoln. She has been nominated for two Oscars. She co-chaired Lucasfilm with George Lucas before taking over as president when Disney bought the company. And as already explained, she oversaw the revival of the Star Wars franchise and released three of the highest-grossing movies in cinema history while earning consistent critical acclaim and audience delight.
In other words, let’s not pretend that Kennedy somehow is unqualified for her job, or is not cut out for making these types of films, or that she has anything less than a fantastic record of being involved with a long list of some of the very best and most successful films ever made throughout her entire career.
Solo’s fate is underserved, because it’s an exciting, entertaining picture that reminds me of the original trilogy. Critics and audiences who actually saw it gave it big thumbs-up approval. Here’s what I think mostly contributed to Solo’s box office collapse…
First of all, they released another Star Wars movie five months after The Last Jedi, which was a longer and more somber film, so the feelings about that prior release were still lingering and had an impact on excitement for Solo. This isn’t the MCU where each film is technically in the same larger universe but the individual solo films have their own unique identities and brands. Star Wars is all perceived by audiences as a tightly connected ongoing tale tied to mostly the same central characters and events. So while Marvel can get away with releasing multiple superhero films each year, Star Wars movies are first and foremost identified as a single main story defined not by unique standalone characters but by their specific status as Star Wars stories.
Then, there’s the fact that too many other big movies were already competing for the same target demographics and doing a better job courting those viewers’ attention. Black Panther is still actually drawing a portion of theatergoers, Infinity War continues to have a massive footprint, Deadpool 2 is scooping up a big segment of the same audience. (By the way, I have to give a shout-out to Rob Liefeld, who last year during a panel I moderated at Stan Lee’s L.A. Comic Con (now renamed simply LA Comic Con) predicted Deadpool 2 would outgross the new Star Wars movie this year, much to the audience’s disbelief and amusement at the time. I wonder how many people watching our panel remembered that when they saw the numbers for Solo?)
The issue of competition leads us to another major point, which is that Solo: A Star Wars Story should’ve released at Christmas. Those extra months would put distance between the negative reports during reshoots, and would allow extra time to change the entire narrative and do a different rollout of marketing. And the Christmas holiday would’ve provided a much friendlier marketplace, of course. Solo could’ve at least hit closer to the $700 million territory predicted as the low end of its potential, with a change of release date and the extended period of time to undo the negative narrative in the press and use marketing to change the film’s reputation.
Speaking of marketing, I think harmed Solo’s performance was the marketing showing so little of Ehrenreich’s performance despite being the main character. What little bits we did see were short lines mostly devoid of his more charming delivery and better projection of the Han Solo personality we all know and love. The trailers did a good job getting across the point it was a fast-paced summer popcorn flick, but the stakes mostly seemed to be (based on the trailers) simply surviving a series of chases and fights, without more impression of the story and emotional stakes.
So the marketing had no romance, very little of Ehrenreich’s Han Solo persona, and they even hid a surprise character cameo that could’ve really helped boost buzz in the final week. Some twists and cameos are worth keeping secret of course, but this one wasn’t necessary to hold as a major surprise reveal. In light of the prior year of negative press coverage and the desire to increase the film’s chances of a good performance, I think the marketing should’ve leveraged this secret character’s popularity among not only older fans, but also young fans who know the character from the prequels and animation.
Relevant to the point about what attracts older and newer fans of the franchise, I think it’s important to understand the new movies made billions of dollars with mostly NEW characters, rather than the traditional original trilogy characters, and the new more diverse cast were a HUGE draw for foreign audiences who drive most of the series’ modern billion dollar success, as well as a major attraction for the younger and newer fans of the series. Even the prequels mostly had new characters for new generations to focus on and relate to, too. The more any of the films put focus on the older original trilogy characters, the more I think they will lose a lot of interest from younger and newer fans.
With Solo, this translated into newer and younger fans being less interested because it didn’t have the characters they’re most interested in. For older fans, it was replacing the iconic performance of Harrison Ford with a new younger actor, so there was uncertainty and even opposition on principle. It didn’t help that we kept hearing months of bad press including reports of an acting coach being hired on set. It turns out all of the fears and negativity were irrelevant, just as such things would’ve been if we’d constantly heard the during production of the original trilogy. But alas, it had its impact, I fear.
Also remember the simple role of economics in the choices many viewers made related to Solo. Most people only see four movies per year in theaters, and they already saw Black Panther and Infinity War this year, and most are awaiting Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, so a lot of them probably decided to skip Solo since they just saw another Star Wars movie a few months ago and many felt that one was less joyful and family-friendly.
Add all of this together, plus the media reports of troubled production and so on, and I think that’s the convergence of forces that caused Solo to fail. It’s worth noting, however, that if the film had played as expected or even just performed to the tune of roughly $800 million or so, we’d all be saying “well of course, that was to be expected” and all of this Monday morning quarterbacking would be moot. But in retrospect, now that we’ve seen the outcome, I think it’s possible to see certain factors that resulted in the failure.
It’s true that a good movie should be able to stand on its own, but the simple truth is we all know that lots of great movies get made but wind up failing to find an audience for all sorts of reasons unrelated to the quality of the film itself, just as we know plenty of bad movies succeed for reasons besides the inherent quality of the picture. So I don’t feel it’s enough to just say Solo’s failure is due to people not thinking it was good enough — clearly, most people who actually saw the film did think it was extremely good, and we know of several significant external factors that logically played a role in the outcome.
I’d say that reviving older characters in future movies will need to include new characters as well, especially new characters who have already been introduced in the more popular recent pictures like The Force Awakens. And yes, diversity is a selling point — the more racial and gender diversity, the better, and I think Solo points to this crucial truth.
So to bring it back full circle, despite the false posturing of the racist and sexist crowd of fans, the truth is the first time a new Star Wars movie flopped was when the series returned to having a white male lead character. There were less people of color in Solo’s primary cast, too, compared to the other films. And just to add some additional side thoughts, I think it would be worthwhile to film sizable portions of the new movies in China and India, and cast popular local stars in major roles. That would probably help move the needle significantly for Star Wars in the Asia Pacific region, where it needs to develop a stronger foothold akin to Marvel’s remarkable success.
But enough second-guessing and advice-giving from me. Lucasfilm will probably score another $1+ billion result for Star Wars: Episode IX next Christmas, and that will mean the five films in the revival of the series combined for a total box office of $5.8+/- billion. Should Episode IX also get good reviews and at least an A- grade from audiences, then I think the smart move is to keep Kathleen Kennedy right where she is and treat Solo as a learning experience involving a good film that just feel victim to a few unfortunate choices regarding release date and marketing.
Star Wars is a popular, beloved brand that has had exactly one single financial stumble out of ten movie over the course of 41 years. Every film still got good reviews and every film was strongly liked by those who saw it. It will continue to be a popular, successful series going forward, and it would be a huge mistake and reactionary to allow a single financial failure to overshadow all of the tremendous success Lucasfilm has achieved with the brand in film and television to date. (And I’ll even toss in an enthusiastic endorsement for the new comic books Marvel is releasing to tie into their official canonical backstory for Star Wars — some of the comics are seriously as good as the storytelling in the movies, it’s amazing stuff and if you love Star Wars I urge you to check out the new comics.)
I understand there are business and artistic points to be made about any film or series of films, and that if you object to the decisions and feel the negative elements of leadership and outcomes outweighs the positives, then you might feel a studio head or executive — or filmmaker, or other artists involved — should be removed and replaced. I’ve certainly felt that way from time to time about studios, projects, and so on, and you’ve no doubt seen my articles arguing (sometimes subtly, sometimes bluntly) that a studio’s leadership has dropped the ball and should be held more accountable for major failures and problems.
So I’m not unaware that there are good people with good motives and good intentions who have what they feel are good reasons for supporting change in leadership for the Star Wars brand. I just disagree, and I think there’s a lot of good evidence and arguments for why Star Wars is overall on the right course, is doing well, and is in the right hands.
But if the rumors are true, and if Kathleen Kennedy does decide to move on, then I can only hope Lucasfilm finds someone with as much great experience and as wonderful a track record as Kennedy has amassed in her career, and who shares her nuanced understanding of how to make great Star Wars movies.
Box office figures and tallies based on data via Box Office Mojo , Rentrak, and TheNumbers.
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