For what appears to be the first time since the major changes in leadership for both Disney and Lucasfilm, the new heads of the parent company and its subsidiary have revealed that they had a meeting about the future of the Star Wars franchise on film and television.
Disney President Dana Walden has showcased a new group photo inside the employee lounge, “The Rebel Hideout”, following a recent meeting discussing future projects set in the galaxy far, far away. Also present were a number of executives and creators on both sides of the company, such as CEO Josh D’Amaro and Chairman Alan Bergman, Lucasfilm’s President and CCO Dave Filoni, and Co-President Lynwen Brennan. The Instagram post can be seen below:
Bergman also weighed in by sharing the same photo, adding the following message:
“Always wonderful to visit with our Lucasfilm team to talk about the many exciting projects in the works. Don’t miss the final episodes of Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord on Disney+ this May the 4th, and The Mandalorian and Grogu in theaters on May 22!”
One of the people who commented in Bergman’s post was Lucasfilm Animation’s Athena Yvette Portillo, who mentioned the group also stopped by the Animation division.
Filoni and Brennan succeeded Kathleen Kennedy as President of Lucasfilm back in January. Since then, the company has released the majority of the animated series Maul: Shadow Lord, and is preparing for the release of the first theatrical Star Wars movie since December 2019, in The Mandalorian and Grogu, which Filoni co-wrote and executive produced. Filoni is also the showrunner, writer, and director of Ahsoka Season 2, which could bow on Disney Plus later this year. There’s been little to no other news about new projects beyond next year’s Star Wars: Starfighter. A remaster of the unaltered original film is also set to be shown in theaters on February 19, 2027.
D’Amaro has been CEO of Disney for a little over a month by now, and is already facing several challenges at the corporate and branding level, including OpenAI backing out of Sora after Disney’s public investment in the company, to a bet on Epic Games that may backfire, and an early renewal of the company’s TV stations’ broadcast licenses. However, his footprint on the creative side of the company has not been felt yet.
For now, that’s more of Walden’s cup of tea, after being promoted from head of TV to President of the company. The streaming and theatrical strategy will be defined in the coming months. For now, it seems like Disney is not as interested in making as many expensive streaming series as they used to, at least not from Marvel or Lucasfilm, and would rather focus on theatrical releases instead. However, the only significant announcement we’ve had since both the new executives at Disney and Lucasfilm took over has been the renewal of Maul: Shadow Lord for a second season.
The two teams will likely see each other again at the Mandalorian and Grogu world premiere next month.
Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.