Kathleen Kennedy Contract Renewed Through 2024

Jedijax719

Well-Known Member
So the fanboy excuse?

no…not gonna get off that hook with that blanket excuse from the Clinton era…

disney spent $4 bil on something, but put together a plan without ever studying why it was successful in the first place. Their entire approach was “modernization”…which is ok if you do a story. They did a remake and then let it flop afterward. That was beyond stupidity level.
It sent the message to billions (literally) of people that they were somehow wrong to like it in the first place.

this was Bob iger’s billion dollar net worth job. Instead of taking some time or ID’ing why it worked would have been prudent. Instead they mined the past - to a degree - for current outrage. That never works.

how much of that is on KK? We can’t be sure…but she carried out her role in that error.

This is probably why the prequels (gulp) seem to be more accepted now in comparison. I’m not talking about comic con all access pass goers - I’m talking normal Joes.

lucas tried to exploit his franchise for money aimed at children…that seems to be more acceptable than trying to retcon the whole thing and killing the main characters in beyond unmemorable fashion while you do it.
The biggest thing is that they killed the original heroes, created new heroes, but had absolutely ZERO goals or future with the new heroes. So they essentially killed EVERYONE with no place to go. They frantically threw things against he wall but the entire wall collapsed. Now they are stuck. The result is that SW has died a painful death. A few shows, as good as they may be, cannot rejuvenated the franchise.

They hired separate people to do separate movies but had no plans for continuity or connection. The first thing that KK needed to do is hire a showrunner and someone to write a TRILOGY and not a single movie. She needed to understand her own strengths and weaknesses and filled the gaps. They also needed to understand and monitor where JJ and RJ were going.

Is there room for redemption? I really don't know about that. I think they COULD if they focus on a different era. But there will be things that are now lacking and not able to recover. Sad part is. there is a list of things they could have EASILY added to TROS to make it actually a pretty good movie. Do a CGI scene with the original heroes together when Kylo was born or very young. have some more explanation as to Palpatine's return, focusing on the sith acoylytes' involvement, have a good epilogue honoring Leia (maybe a statue on Coruscant presented by Poe in the new capital city), Force ghosts present and visible at the end (like many fan edits have done which were so much better), and a scene where Leia and Kylo reunite using footage of Carrie-no words need to be said.

Those are ideas. Point is that they just needed SOME sense of vision and oversight.
 

Disney Irish

Premium Member
Original Poster
So the fanboy excuse?

no…not gonna get off that hook with that blanket excuse from the Clinton era…

disney spent $4 bil on something, but put together a plan without ever studying why it was successful in the first place. Their entire approach was “modernization”…which is ok if you do a story. They did a remake and then let it flop afterward. That was beyond stupidity level.
It sent the message to billions (literally) of people that they were somehow wrong to like it in the first place.

this was Bob iger’s billion dollar net worth job. Instead of taking some time or ID’ing why it worked would have been prudent. Instead they mined the past - to a degree - for current outrage. That never works.

how much of that is on KK? We can’t be sure…but she carried out her role in that error.

This is probably why the prequels (gulp) seem to be more accepted now in comparison. I’m not talking about comic con all access pass goers - I’m talking normal Joes.

lucas tried to exploit his franchise for money aimed at children…that seems to be more acceptable than trying to retcon the whole thing and killing the main characters in beyond unmemorable fashion while you do it.
Defensive much? Did I say fanbois? No I didn’t, I said public, as in the general movie going public. Also I said this wasn’t isolated to just Star Wars, stating it’s an overall Hollywood issue not just LFL.
 

erasure fan1

Well-Known Member
Some can say they left money on the table, but when its Billions being talked about that table is already plenty large enough. How the fandom "feels" about it is something they aren't all that interested in.
You are right in the sense that Disney only cares about money. But here is where I would push back on your the tables large enough statement. Disney spent over 4 billion on star wars. If you add up the box office for the Kennedy movies you get about 5.8 billion. Now, if you go by the accepted, the studio take is 50%, that means Disneys take is 2.9 billion ish. Now take out the reported production budgets and you now around 2 billion in profit. I'm sure the DVD/blu-ray made some money, but not enough.

And to pile on a bit, merchandising was the bread and butter of the franchise. They had a good start with force awakens but after that, it was pretty poor until baby yoda came along.

So I'm not really understanding this crazy surplus of money? I don't believe Disney went into this thinking, hey, if we could just make half our money back after 10yrs and 7 movies, that will be great. They didn't just leave some money, they left a lot of money on that table.
 

Jedijax719

Well-Known Member
The $4 billion deal is only worth it if they keep pulling in more and more money year after year. Instead, they just stopped dead. They didn't buy a product that couldn't sell. They bought a product that could sell extremely well but stopped making any products TO sell.

Imagine if a company bought coka-cola and, after 4 years, they stopped selling soda products. But instead of replacing it with something else that could make even more money, they stopped selling ANYTHING at all. I mean-it's like they're not even trying. No, it's that they ARE NOT trying.
 

Disney Irish

Premium Member
Original Poster
You are right in the sense that Disney only cares about money. But here is where I would push back on your the tables large enough statement. Disney spent over 4 billion on star wars. If you add up the box office for the Kennedy movies you get about 5.8 billion. Now, if you go by the accepted, the studio take is 50%, that means Disneys take is 2.9 billion ish. Now take out the reported production budgets and you now around 2 billion in profit. I'm sure the DVD/blu-ray made some money, but not enough.

And to pile on a bit, merchandising was the bread and butter of the franchise. They had a good start with force awakens but after that, it was pretty poor until baby yoda came along.

So I'm not really understanding this crazy surplus of money? I don't believe Disney went into this thinking, hey, if we could just make half our money back after 10yrs and 7 movies, that will be great. They didn't just leave some money, they left a lot of money on that table.
Except you're ignoring any other revenue Disney makes from Star Wars such as merchandising and licensing deals and D+ subs.

Back in 2018 CNBC had a report that Disney had already recouped the cost of the LFL purchase -


And that was before TRoS and Mando came out. So add in those plus all the other revenue streams Disney has for Star Wars and it adds up real quick, into the Billions.

Also don't get me wrong, I have already agreed many times over that the sequel films could have be so much better. But the point is that Disney/LFL for all its flaws and missteps still has managed to make quite a bit of money off of Star Wars.
 

erasure fan1

Well-Known Member
Except you're ignoring any other revenue Disney makes from Star Wars such as merchandising and licensing deals and D+ subs.

Back in 2018 CNBC had a report that Disney had already recouped the cost of the LFL purchase -


And that was before TRoS and Mando came out. So add in those plus all the other revenue streams Disney has for Star Wars and it adds up real quick, into the Billions.

Also don't get me wrong, I have already agreed many times over that the sequel films could have be so much better. But the point is that Disney/LFL for all its flaws and missteps still has managed to make quite a bit of money off of Star Wars.
I didn't ignore the merchandising as I talked about how well the force awakens did and baby yoda. I also mentioned the home video sales as well. The problem with the article you posted is it doesn't tell the whole story if you read it. It says they already made their investment back. But then says but it doesn't acount for the production budgets and promotion of the films. It also doesn't talk about the fact that Disney doesn't get all of the 4.8 billion, only around 50%. Just those 2 things puts them well behind the purchase price.

Has Disney recovered it's investment? Maybe. We don't really know what impact star wars had on D+ or what the total licensing revenue is. I wouldn't really give Kennedy credit for the merchandising part anyway. 4 of the 5 movies had terrible merchandising and Mando was great once they got baby yoda out. You have to look at what impact the creations under Kennedy have done. Original trilogy merch will account for a huge portion of that merchandising pie, and that really isn't Kennedy. Just look at galaxys edge. Why did Iger say all he had to do was send out a message saying, it's open. And people would be lined up out of state. It never happened. You can say rise wasn't open and things like that. But it boils down to people not having a real connection with Kennedy star wars. And that's more money left on the table.

At this point if you are pro Kennedy or think she needs to go, no one is changing your mind.
 

Disney Irish

Premium Member
Original Poster
At this point if you are pro Kennedy or think she needs to go, no one is changing your mind.
This is the only thing in your post I will agree with.

I don’t think you’re giving the merch and licensing revenue enough credit in term of recouping the LFL purchase cost. It doesn’t matter if that is due to Kennedy’s decisions or not, it still revenue added to the bottom line on her watch. If she gets blame for any decisions on her watch, then she also gets the credit for ANY revenue brought in on her watch. You can’t cherry pick saying all the bad was on her and then claim all the good wasn’t. If she is the head of the studio she gets both the praise and criticism.
 

MisterPenguin

President of Animal Kingdom
Premium Member
Except you're ignoring any other revenue Disney makes from Star Wars such as merchandising and licensing deals and D+ subs.

Back in 2018 CNBC had a report that Disney had already recouped the cost of the LFL purchase -


And that was before TRoS and Mando came out. So add in those plus all the other revenue streams Disney has for Star Wars and it adds up real quick, into the Billions.

Also don't get me wrong, I have already agreed many times over that the sequel films could have be so much better. But the point is that Disney/LFL for all its flaws and missteps still has managed to make quite a bit of money off of Star Wars.
Actually....

Tho the author says they didn't take into account the cost of the movies... they should. It cost about $2.2B to make and market the movies.

Then, the author doesn't take into account that Disney only gets half of the Box Office.

So, the Disney-LucasFilm Star Wars films, in their theatrical window, created a profit of only $0.8B.

Now, PPV, CDs, licensing, streaming, and merch certainly made the movies even more profitable.

But, I wouldn't be confidant that Disney has actually *profited* from the purchase of LF.

At least not yet.

Tho, it's hard to measure just how many subs that The Mandalorian brought in to Disney+.
 

Disney Irish

Premium Member
Original Poster
Actually....

Tho the author says they didn't take into account the cost of the movies... they should. It cost about $2.2B to make and market the movies.

Then, the author doesn't take into account that Disney only gets half of the Box Office.

So, the Disney-LucasFilm Star Wars films, in their theatrical window, created a profit of only $0.8B.

Now, PPV, CDs, licensing, streaming, and merch certainly made the movies even more profitable.

But, I wouldn't be confidant that Disney has actually *profited* from the purchase of LF.

At least not yet.

Tho, it's hard to measure just how many subs that The Mandalorian brought in to Disney+.
Understood, but again that is JUST the Star Wars films not the rest of LFL.

What about the rest of the revenue brought in over the last 9 years? As @doctornick pointed out, ILM and Skywalker Sound bring in revenue outside of Star Wars. That in itself has to have paid dividends over the last 9 years as they don't just deal with Star Wars or even Disney.
 

MisterPenguin

President of Animal Kingdom
Premium Member
Understood, but again that is JUST the Star Wars films not the rest of LFL.

What about the rest of the revenue brought in over the last 9 years? As @doctornick pointed out, ILM and Skywalker Sound bring in revenue outside of Star Wars. That in itself has to have paid dividends over the last 9 years as they don't just deal with Star Wars or even Disney.
True that. I was just addressing the misguided notion from the article that the $5B in Box Office receipts does not mean Disney pocketed that as profit.

And also, not to mention licensing of Indiana Jones.

And the sweet sweet revenue from American Graffiti!! ;)
 

erasure fan1

Well-Known Member
It also doesn't account for other segments of the Lucasfilm purchase. ILM and Skywalker Sound make a decent revenue stream for the company IIRC.

Exactly, ILM itself touches almost every aspect of Hollywood. That is a huge revenue stream coming in.
Only Disney knows how much Kennedy is responsible for what ILM takes in. And maybe she's made some great business moves with ILM to increase it's foothold. That doesn't change how bad of a state star wars theatrical is right now, because of her. So if you want to argue that Kennedy should be in charge of the business side of LFL, great. I've said many times before, that should have been the move straight away after last jedi. Star wars fans care nothing of the money brought in from the effects house side of the business. So she might be a great business woman but it's plenty obvious she shouldn't be in a position making creative decisions.
 

sedati

Well-Known Member
An odd source for a leak, but an official one- the Lucasfilm employee gift came in a box with logos for the 2022 recent and upcoming projects. Seems we're also getting a "Tales of the Jedi" project this year. Could be live action or animation. There was a Darkhorse comic series of the same name.
 
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doctornick

Well-Known Member
An odd source for a leak, but an official one- the Lucasfilm employee gift came in a box with logos for the 2022 projects. Seems we're also getting a "Tales of the Jedi" project this year. Could be live action or animation. There was a Darkhorse comic series of the same name.

Boba Fett is a 2021 release (though obviously will release episodes in 2022) and Indiana Jones is slated for June 2023. So just on that, it's possible Tales of the Jedi is not coming out in 2022. Interesting that Visions is on there which could indicate a second season. Also interesting is that The Mandalorian is not on there though we already know there has been filming for it so it seems pretty far alone to not be a 2022 release.
 

Jedijax719

Well-Known Member
Merry Christmas!

Tale of the Jedi is probably a special look at different Jedi, similar maybe to MCU "Legend" series? Or maybe it is another animated series.

It will be interesting to see what is said about it in the next few weeks. Nice Christmas present to see a logo for a new SW product.
 

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