Star Wars Will Move Beyond Trilogies, Says Kathleen Kennedy

There’s been a lot of talk about Star Wars going forward as Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker gets ready to release this upcoming week. In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy thinks the future could look a lot different than the present does for the franchise. These movies have tended to come in threes and convention would seem to dictate that the formula works, so why rock the boat. But, that won’t lead to the kind of growth possible for the company. It’s interesting to think about the prospect of doing more standalone movies or even shorter sagas in contrast to the movie every other year on average in the current trilogy. Still, some people would raise eyebrows about the prospect of different stories after the hiccups around Solo: A Star Wars Story and the reception of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Kennedy and the brain trust behind these movies believe this is the best move though. Clearly something is going to be different heading into the next couple of years for Lucasfilm.

“Obviously, that’s what’s we’ve been spending so much time talking about, and it’s a really important transition for ‘Star Wars,’” Kennedy began. “What we’ve been focused on these last five or six years is finishing that family saga around the Skywalkers. Now is the time to start thinking about how to segue into something new and different.”

“I think it gives us a more open-ended view of storytelling and doesn’t lock us into this three-act structure,” she added. “We’re not going to have some finite number and fit it into a box. We’re really going to let the story dictate that.”

The idea of Star Wars fatigue is something that has come up a bunch over the last few years. Kennedy isn’t exactly buying into the idea of that either. She told io9 that these Disney+ series and future projects will just enhance the other offerings.

“I don’t think there was a worry about that,” she explained. “And I think we’ve been pleasantly surprised. We’re going into television. We’ve never done [live-action] television for Star Wars. So, yes, there’s an unknown and I suppose you could say there was an underlying risk. But what we absolutely knew is that the two are very different in look and feel and were not in any way trying to do the same thing. So we arrived at a point of view pretty early that we thought the two could live comfortably side by side. And I actually think the fans are having fun with Mandalorian and I think it will only help The Rise of Skywalker.”