Disney’s “Star Wars” boss may not be stepping down after all

Yesterday, reports spread at light speed about the impending departure of Kathleen Kennedy, Lucasfilm’s longtime president. However, according to CNN, which spoke to sources familiar with the matter, that is in fact not the case — or at least, there’s nothing formal to announce right now.

Since becoming president in 2012, Kennedy has been at the helm for all of the “Star Wars” releases under Disney — and there have been a lot — after the entertainment giant acquired Lucasfilm in the same year. Under her leadership, the brand has had mixed reviews.

There’s certainly been some commercial success, with the latest major trilogy of movies raking in more than $4 billion at the global box office, even as fan reviews of the movies have tapered off. Indeed, the average IMDB rating for the original set of movies was 8.5 — a bar that’s proven hard to meet for the later productions, with the latest release, “The Rise of Skywalker,” the lowest rated of the nine main franchise movies. Once inflation has been taken into account, it’s also one of the weaker commercial efforts.

But while the box office figures are important, Disney has really been sweating the “Star Wars” assets on the merchandise front as new TV shows like “The Mandalorian” and stand-alone movies like “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” have given fans more reasons to part with their money. Sales of Baby Yoda dolls and the like have helped Disney rake in a cool $1 billion in merch sales alone last year, according to analysis from The Hollywood Reporter. “Star Wars” remains the perfect example of the Disney content money machine: create beloved characters in a rich universe that are merch-friendly, spin-off-friendly, and theme-park-ride-friendly. Tick, tick, tick.