Kathleen Kennedy’s biggest Star Wars regret can be easily rectified. To say that Disney’s handling of the space opera franchise has been tumultuous would be an understatement. When the House of Mouse acquired George Lucas’ galaxy far, far away, the company was starting to see the payoff to Kevin Feige’s MCU build-up. Because of this, there was excitement for Disney’s plans for Star Wars. By then, it had been years since the last fresh content from the universe, and the backing of a new company meant that there would be new stories set in the beloved fictional world.
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Unfortunately, that path towards rebuilding the space opera and reintroducing it to modern times proved to be trickier than initially perceived. While the era produced revered projects like Andor, it also released other projects that were more divisive. As her time at Lucasfilm came to a close, Kennedy candidly looked back at everything that they did while she was at the helm of the most popular franchise of all time, including admitting one particular regret.
Kathleen Kennedy Admitted To Regretting Solo: A Star Wars Story
In a 2026 interview with Deadline, Kennedy discussed her regrets during her time with Lucasfilm, and while she stood by all of her decisions, she did think that the way they did Solo: A Star Wars Story had issues, not as much as what was in the film, but the behind-the-scenes aspect of it. She specifically mentioned putting Alden Ehrenreich in a tough position to step into the shoes of such an iconic character. While he was good in it, the timing of the prequel could have been better, with Kennedy saying that “conceptually, we did it too soon.”
Released in 2018, Solo: A Star Wars Story was the second anthology film in the franchise following Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. While the Ehrenreich-led movie was directed by Ron Howard, the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s involvement was from original helmers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller exiting the project despite production having already started. This happened at the peak of big blockbusters having public creative control disputes between filmmakers and studios, leaving fans dealing with two versions of a movie — one that was released and another left hidden.
Serving as the origin story for Harrison Ford’s iconic character, the core of Kennedy’s regret about it was the timing of its release. As she said, at that point, they eventually realized that “fundamentally, conceptually, you cannot replace Han Solo.” For context, the film was released in May 2018 — less than three years since Ford’s iteration died tragically in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Considering how beloved the actor and character pairing is, the fandom was still grieving the loss, so Ehrenreich’s debut as a young, devil-may-care version was more of a depressing reminder of his tragic end rather than being a fun adventure film.
The Current State Of Star Wars Makes It The Perfect Time To Do Solo 2
Kennedy was right, Ehrenreich was fantastic as Han Solo — a near-impossible feat given how synonymous Ford is with the role. While the movie had its own narrative and pacing issues, its lead star’s performance wasn’t a problem. Simply put, Ehrenreich was the best thing about Solo: A Star Wars Story. That in itself should have been enough motivation to give the actor another crack at playing the space scoundrel, perhaps under better circumstances than the 2018 film. Luckily, it can do that now, under this new era of Star Wars.
Kennedy may have already stepped down, but that doesn’t mean that new Lucasfilm head honchos Dave Filoni and Lynwen Brennan shouldn’t at least consider doing Solo 2. As established in the original film, Han and Chewbacca’s adventures mostly take place in the seedy and lawless locations in Star Wars. The 2018 movie saw them dealing with a host of other interesting characters with no ties to the Jedi or Sith, such as Woody Harrelson’s Tobias Beckett, Donald Glover’s young Lando Calrissian, Paul Bettany’s Dryden Voss, and Emilia Clarke’s Qi’ra.
Instead of being part of the upper echelon, they roam around the underworld — a less explored corner of the galaxy far, far away. That’s gradually changing, however, with projects like Andor, Maul: Shadow Lord, and even the upcoming Star Wars: Starfighter movie from Shawn Levy. Solo 2 will be a fitting addition to this new expansion direction for Star Wars — one that has endless potential with minimal chances to contradict the established canon.
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