When Hollywood needs a little PR crisis mopped up, there’s a well-worn playbook — and step one is usually “Call Mike Fleming Jr. at Deadline.” He’s always ready with a mop, a bucket, and a sympathetic word.
Case in point: When Matt Belloni over at Puck dropped the bombshell that Kennedy’s days at Lucasfilm were numbered. That scoop clearly wasn’t supposed to leak — and judging by how fast Disney HQ scrambled, Belloni caught them with their pants down.
Kennedy immediately went to Fleming, and the result read less like journalism and more like an attempt to airbrush a legacy in real-time. The whole thing oozed with the kind of bold-faced spin that only a truly chaotic exit plan could inspire.
Fleming burned a whole essay’s worth of space trying to discredit Belloni’s reporting — namely, that Kennedy’s out within a year — only to have Kennedy herself turn around and say, essentially, “Yeah, I’m probably out within a year.”
So, when exactly will Kennedy be stepping aside? Jeff Sneider has revealed that Kennedy will be stepping down from the company this August—much sooner than the end-of-year timeline or the “sometime in 2026” fantasy some were clinging to.
Sneider seems pretty confident about it too. But quite frankly, I wouldn’t be shocked if Kennedy catches wind of this August rumor and, true to form in her quest to control the narrative, pushes her exit back to September. That’s just how she operates.
Honestly, this whole thing smells like a power move gone sideways. Someone at Disney — Iger, most likely — decided it was time for a change, and because of Belloni, Kennedy didn’t get to control the rollout. She tried to claw back some semblance of narrative control by doing the bizarre, almost hostage-taped Fleming interview.