<\/p>\n
So, you want to be the head of a movie studio, eh? In the time since producer extraordinaire and industry legend Kathleen Kennedy took over Lucasfilm as George Lucas’ handpicked successor<\/a>, she helped revitalize a franchise badly in need of it following the then-dismal reception to the prequels … and\u00a0has received almost nothing but slings and arrows for it. Despite the sequel trilogy’s checkered reputation these days, her oversight led to a string of billion-dollar hits and a new generation of fan-favorite characters. Similarly, her championing of “The Mandalorian” successfully brought the “Star Wars” brand to streaming television. And in a studio landscape where creative visionaries rarely get a chance to flex, Kennedy certainly deserves credit for allowing Tony\u00a0Gilroy the time and space (and money) to do, well, almost anything he wanted to do with “Andor.”<\/p>\n All told, it’s a thankless job \u2014 and this latest development only makes that more apparent. We’re still grappling with the news that Disney shot down a movie focused on Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren<\/a>\/Ben Solo at the last possible moment. Now, another twist of the lightsaber only makes this decision all the more disappointing. There’s no denying the revolving door of talented filmmakers that have come and gone unceremoniously from various projects set in that galaxy far, far away. But the loss of Steven Soderbergh’s film, titled “The Hunt for Ben\u00a0Solo,” actually marks a first in the franchise. The claim to fame comes courtesy of Soderbergh himself (or, at least, the BlueSky account<\/a> commonly attributed to the writer\/director). As he posted<\/a>:<\/p>\n “Also, in the aftermath of the [‘Hunt for Ben\u00a0Solo’] situation, I asked Kathy Kennedy if [Lucasfilm] had ever turned in a finished movie script for greenlight to Disney and had it rejected. She said no, this was a first.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n