If a Hollywood studio or creative wants to do damage control then they usually call Deadline’s Mike Fleming Jr — he’ll gladly carry the water for them.
Case in point, this awkward interview that’s just been published between Fleming and LucasFilm President Kathleen Kennedy. It’s really quite something to read the sheer chutzpah of this thing.
Puck’s Matt Belloni was the journalist who broke the news of Kennedy’s upcoming exit from LucasFilm. Whatever way he got this information, it’s quite clear it wasn’t supposed to be leaked, and that caught Disney, and particularly Kennedy, completely off guard.
Fleming starts off his piece by not only attempting to defend Kennedy’s disastrous 13-year tenure as LucasFilm President (“she has done much to broaden George Lucas’ Star Wars’ vision”) but goes on a 1000-word diatribe bashing Belloni.
Belloni for years has been beating on Kennedy like she owes him money, and this week he reported Kennedy was retiring […] I admire Belloni’s hustle and ability to turn over hard ground, but his penchant for defining industry people like Kennedy in disparaging ways, well, I just don’t understand that.
Fleming wastes so much ink trying to debunk Belloni's claim that Kennedy will be stepping down in 8-12 months time only to have Kennedy’s first quote be about how she’ll likely be stepping down in 8-12 months time.
What’s happening at Lucasfilm is I have been talking for quite some time with both Bob [Iger] and Alan [Bergman] about what eventual succession might look like. We have an amazing bunch of people here, and we have every intention of making an announcement months or a year down the road.
Wait, am I reading this correctly? It sounds like this might have been a Succession-level power play against Kennedy. Someone really wanted her out — probably Iger — and she might not have had much of a say in the matter? Her choosing to do an interview where she even admits to a succession plan is quite something.
Kennedy deciding to take part in this interview doesn’t make much sense until you realize that she quite simply wants to take back her narrative. The news of her impending exit was never supposed to come out until an official announcement sometime later this year. Belloni stole that from her.
Kennedy is now very insistent that it will be HER choice when she leaves. Yet she also hints that she could very well be stepping down between now and the end of the year. Go figure.
The interview is very slyly produced in how Kennedy isn’t actually debunking what the trades, or Belloni, are saying, but just ducking around Fleming’s questions with carefully put together responses. Kennedy’s answers are vague, but not vague enough for us to realize that she’s toast as the head of LucasFilm.
DEADLINE: Will you step out as Lucasfilm boss this year?
KENNEDY: We really don’t know at this stage. There’s so much going on, Mike. I don’t know.
