Dave Filoni was named president of Walt Disney-owned Lucasfilm (DIS.N) on Thursday.
He is known as a protégé of “Star Wars” creator George Lucas and was a creative force behind the hit streaming TV series “The Mandalorian.”
According to a statement from Disney, current Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy will step down this week and take up a position as a full-time producer.
Reuters reported that Filoni, 51, will now helm one of the highest-grossing film franchises in history, as well as live-action and animated TV shows.
He will work with co-president Lynwen Brennan, who leads the studio’s business affairs and operations.
Disney CEO Bob Iger praised Kennedy’s “leadership, her vision and her stewardship” of the studio.
The 72-year-old Kennedy, who has led Lucasfilm since Disney bought it in 2012, oversaw three blockbuster sequels to the original “Star Wars” trilogy and the hit spinoff “Rogue One.”
“Solo,” a 2018 film that introduced a new actor as the smuggler made famous by Harrison Ford, flopped at the box office. That led to concerns that audiences were growing tired of the beloved franchise.
“‘Solo’ was a little disappointing for us,” Iger said in 2023. “It gave us pause to think that maybe the cadence was a little too aggressive. And so we decided to pull back a little bit.”
Disney halted the “Star Wars” films in 2019 to focus on live-action TV series, including “The Mandalorian” starring Pedro Pascal and introducing popular character Baby Yoda. The company scrapped planned “Star Wars” films from directors Patty Jenkins and Rian Johnson as Kennedy worked to reset its film strategy.
Filoni, meanwhile, oversaw many popular and critically acclaimed TV series, including “The Mandalorian” and “Ahsoka.”
Both Kennedy and Filoni worked with Lucas, creator of the original “Star Wars” film series that debuted in 1977. The franchise, about a group of rebels in a galaxy far, far away, has grossed more than $10.3 billion at the box office worldwide, according to Comscore.
