Happy birthday Kathleen Kennedy 🎂🎂

Her produced Poltergeist was released a day before her birthday 37 years ago today.

Not gonna say anything ‘case the haters come by. 🤐

Well, that's one opinion.

Has she really saved Star Wars? How? She didn't buy it. Disney did. Furthermore, it was George Lucas decision to sell it. He could have easily stalled making any more episodic films indefinitely, kept LucasFilm and still made money. So if you consider the sequel trilogy as saving SW then it was Lucas decision that allowed it and saved it. But ST fanatics, Plinkett drones, and Disney SW shills would rather die than admit that.

If you're talking specifically about Kennedy's handling and decisions, it's a mixed bag. Without question.

For TFA she hired Arndt to write the film. But his script stalled when he couldn't mesh the Luke Skywalker character into a background role that Kay Kay felt still wouldn't steal the spotlight from Rey. So with little time left to write a competent script she changed to Abrams. Abrams (with contributions from Kasdan) hammered out a script (removing Luke and rehashing ANH) in 3 weeks. Disney warrior princess Rey set to the backdrop of ANH rehashed was probably the most successful cinema ever borne out of formulaic, lazy writing and production. But it still had phenomenal results.

RO (Rogue One) was a somewhat daring and uncharacteristic choice for Kennedy as the first anthology SW film. The concept seemed safe, and like an addition/expansion to retread. But it ironically came with more originality than TFA and new gritty, more serious tone. Those themes slightly overachieved at the box office and with critics. But that was despite the fact that it was rumored to go over budget with 30% to 60% of the movie being reshot per Kay Kay's decision.

TLJ was written (and directed) by Rian Johnson after Kennedy fired Colin Trevorrow; who coincidentally was putting together a more amicable screenplay for the Luke Skywalker character. But obviously Kay Kay disapproved. Likely again feeling any shine given to Luke threatened Rey. Johnson had no problem writing a script that subverted most of Abrams mystery box storylines that Jar Jar gave no development on where they were going. But the biggest subversion was the characterization of Luke Skywalker. After a first week that projected TLJ to make a ceiling of 1.9 billion it cooled to mediocre blockbuster results. Then met with fanbase backlash. 1.3 billion was still a very good box office success. But Kennedy's decisions may have cost the movie another 300 million to 600 million in profit.

SaSWs (Solo: A Star Wars Story) was the culmination of Kay Kay's checkered direction and trends in mismanagement finally catching up to her. First she hired Lord and Miller. They seemed like the perfect candidates to infuse Disney characterizations and storytelling into the Han Solo anthology movie. But after shooting 80% of the movie a growing dilemma reached the boiling point. Lord and Miller clashed with Kasdan and his writing. Kasdan hated their Disney channel style and felt it was desecrating the Han Solo character. Kathleen was unable to resolve the rift and rumors leaked that she also began to clash with Lord and Miller. Afraid to fire Kasdan (who was regarded as the real genius behind SW by Plinkett fanatics, as opposed to Lucas), she fired Lord and Miller who were mostly guilty of doing what Kay Kay hired them for. (Refer back to bold text) Multiple rumors leaked that quickly painted them as production problem scapegoats. Ron Howard was brought in to reshoot 75% to 90% of the movie; sending the production way over budget. With bad production PR and fanbase backlash still fresh, it was not met with enthusiasm at the box office. It lost hundreds of millions. Something that no other SW movie has done.