Elon Musk does not like what Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy has achieved with the Star Wars franchise.
“She’s extra lethal than the Loss of life Star!” Musk wrote on his social media platform X on Friday in response to a meme that referred to as Kennedy a “franchise killer.”
The Academy Award-winning movie producer was appointed president of Lucasfilm after the corporate was acquired by Disney in 2012. However Kennedy’s management of Lucasfilm has drawn a combined reception from Star Wars followers.
Whereas Kennedy was initially capable of land field workplace hits like 2015’s “Star Wars: The Pressure Awakens” and 2016’s “Rogue One,” Lucasfilm’s subsequent entries into the sci-fi franchise have been missing.
In 2018, Star Wars noticed a giant field workplace bomb in “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” per Deadline.
The franchise’s foray into streaming additionally yielded combined outcomes, with reveals like “The Guide of Boba Fett” doing poorly with audiences, in accordance with Rotten Tomatoes.
She’s extra lethal than the Loss of life Star!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 21, 2024
And it appears that evidently Kennedy’s deal with progressive themes and feminine protagonists in Star Wars tasks has been an enormous bugbear for Musk.
“Kathleen Kennedy is tremendous bigoted towards males,” he wrote in a subsequent X publish on Saturday, referring to an interview that Kennedy gave to The New York Instances final month.
Within the interview, Kennedy defended Leslye Headland, the director and author of the most recent Star Wars tv collection “The Acolyte,” after followers slammed Headland and referred to as her “woke.”
“Working inside these large franchises now, with social media and the extent of expectation, it is terrifying,” Kennedy instructed The Instances.
“I feel loads of the ladies who step into ‘Star Wars’ wrestle with this a bit extra. Due to the fan base being so male-dominated, they often get attacked in methods that may be fairly private,” she added.
Kathleen Kennedy is tremendous bigoted towards males
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 22, 2024
To make certain, Kathleen’s stewardship of Star Wars is not the one cause behind the franchise’s perceived decline amongst followers.
In 2019, then-Disney CEO Bob Iger stated the studio might need launched too many Star Wars tasks after buying Lucasfilm. Iger stepped down as CEO in 2020 earlier than returning to the job in 2022.
“I simply assume that we would’ve put just a little bit an excessive amount of within the market too quick,” Iger instructed The New York Instances in a report revealed in September 2019.
This criticism of Kennedy is not the primary time Musk has expressed his displeasure at what he manufacturers “woke” ideology, and individuals who champion range, fairness, and inclusion (DEI) efforts.
“DEI is simply one other phrase for racism. Disgrace on anybody who makes use of it,” Musk stated in an X publish in January.
Kennedy additionally wasn’t the primary govt to attract Musk’s ire relating to progressive company initiatives. Musk tore into fellow billionaire Mark Cuban after the latter voiced his assist for company DEI initiatives earlier this yr.
“Mark Cuban is desperately attempting to sign his ‘advantage,’ however his hypocrisy convinces nobody,” Musk stated in an X publish revealed in January.
Representatives for Musk and Kennedy didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark from BI despatched outdoors common enterprise hours.
