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The Star Wars Rumor Zone

Posted by Thomas on July 15, 2023 at 11:05 AM

Welcome to the wonderful, entertaining and crazy world of Star Wars rumors! This time I want to talk about the latest rumors, and they are… well… judge for yourself! So click through to find out what is allegedly going on at Lucasfilm! Grab some Popcorn too!

Yeah… it’s that rumor again…

As usual almost all of the following rumors come from Kamran Pasha, a Hollywood screenwriter (who worked on actual tv shows) and his buddy Overlord DVD.

So what have super secret agent “Sparrow” and all the other “Hollywood spies” revealed?

Well… according to the rumors Disney is investigating Lucasfilm for irregularites, five auditors have taken over the LFL offices to look into things. Kathleen Kennedy’s LFL email account is inactive, in fact, she is currently “on leave”, according to the reports.

But it gets really crazy: apparently the auditors found indeed proof of financial irregularities, embezzlement more like it. Allegedly Kathleen Kennedy diverted some of the funds allocated for certain things (other Disney+ series) to her pet project The Acolyte, which allegedly never received proper funding. But Kennedy diverted money which was meant to be spent on other shows to The Acolyte, so Leslye Headland can film the series in England.

They also speculate that the lawsuit filed by a producer who was hired to work on The Acolyte and who was let go with no explanation after just one or two weeks and was then offered a laughable compensation of $5,000 is proof the production never really had any official money, or not that much. The lawsuit is the only part here that is actually verifiably true, since reputable trade magazines have reported on it.

The rumors also claim Headland doesn’t even work for Lucasfilm anymore, so is not overseeing post production and is moving on to other things. Which would be incredibly uncommon and highly unusual. A showrunner, unless fired by the studio, won’t just leave before the end of post production, even if The Acolyte is only a one season show like Obi-Wan Kenobi or The Book of Boba Fett.

Anyway… it gets even crazier… the rumors also say The Acolyte cost a whopping $300+ million to make.

Before you choke on your popcorn… reputable sources, i.e. The Hollywood Reporter, have reported that season 1 of Andor cost a staggering $250 million to make. The Mandalorian is believed to have a budget of roughly $100 million per season, Kenobi cost $150 million (but only for six episodes) and upcoming Skeleton Crew $136 million. Why then was Andor so expensive? In short: location shooting. Andor did not use the Volume at all, and shot in the real world, they used real locations which were later enhanced with CGI in post and they built an entire city, Ferrix, which was an expansive set and much more elaborate than the Nevarro set used on The Mandalorian. And all of that adds up. Also, all the long episodes and the episode count add up too, Andor had 12 episodes, most of them much longer than your standard Mandalorian or Obi-Wan Kenobi episode, closer to 50 minutes than 30 minutes. The end result is that Andor became the most expensive Star Wars series to date.

With that Andor is still relatively cheaper than your standard blockbuster, which also cost $200+ million often, but for a 2 1/2 hour movie, Andor was closer to 11 hours. Still, $250 million for a tv show are an extremely high budget. Especially for a series that only brought in 30-40% of the audience of all the other Star Wars shows.

Perhaps you can understand now why Disney just loves the Volume, it makes things a lot cheaper when it replaces most of the location shooting.

Anyway, with that info the alleged $300 million budget for The Acolyte does not seem as crazy as it may sound at first. Because, as far as we know, The Acolyte also did not use the Volume and instead filmed on sets and on location. But the issue, as rumored, here is that The Acolyte never got all the money it needed greenlit, thus Kennedy simply diverted funds. Which is a criminal offense even.

The rumors go on and claim there was an all hands on deck meeting at Lucasfilm last week and from now on all LFL employees have to directly report to the five auditors, allegedly some Kennedy loyalists have already quit their jobs. Kathleen Kennedy is said to be “no longer a problem” (according to the auditors), and she’s no longer in the building. Not fired yet. But effectively no longer really working.

Headland is said to have received orders to appear at the LFL offices with all of the paperwork, so the auditors can double check the numbers.

Other, less flamboyant, rumor mill YouTubers believe Disney will simply let Kennedy’s contract expire in 2024, that she will not be fired and that they will give her a golden hand shake and basically compliment her out of the door, they speculate she may even get an Academy Award for her work next year at the Oscars. Just so she can save face, she IS one of the most powerful Hollywood producers after all.

But if the other rumor about her very “creative accounting” is true things may also turn out differently. Since embezzlement is an actual crime. But they speculate it could be used as leverage to get her to “retire” on Disney’s terms.

On top of that additional rumors claim there was a heated meeting between Iger and Kennedy where Kennedy tried to turn the tables on him (it was about Indiana Jones’ abysmal box office performance) by asking Iger why all the other Disney movies have flopped… so she insinuated it may not really be her or the movie’s fault, but a Disney problem, he was allegedly less than amused.

So those are the latest developments on the rumor front… Kamran Pasha, as usual, is super convinced his source is on the money and not intentionally misleading him.

Do I think it’s possible Kennedy diverted funds meant for other projects to The Acolyte? Sure. Apparently “creative accounting” is pretty common in Hollywood. Studios themselves do it to get out of paying actors any extra money by claiming a movie never made any money to begin with.
Did she really do it on that scale though, to fund a series Disney never gave the money it needed? No idea. The story does sound a bit outlandish and as usual extraordinary claims would require extraordinary proof, and we have none. Kamran Pasha claims he himself sent an email to Kennedy’s LFL account to test if the email is really inactive, and he said “yes”, it bounced back. But he never even showed a screenshot as proof, not that screenshots prove anything, since you can falsify them very easily. But to not even show that is curious.

So as usual I would say… all of the above is “unlikely” to be true. If it is true… well… Kathleen Kennedy would be in real trouble. Either way, after the Indiana Jones disaster Kennedy should at least be on the ropes, but will she get knocked out, figuratively speaking? She was fired about half a dozen times in the past few years and is still the president of Lucasfilm. So I would advise anyone to only believe any reports about her firing or retirement when The Hollywood Reporter, Variety or Deadline report it. Preferably with photo proof. Video footage. And DNA samples so we know it’s not an impostor, Kennedy double or three Ewoks hiding under a coat.

So, what do you make of it? Do you think it’s plausible Kennedy basically embezzled money to fund The Acolyte? Do you think that series could actually cost $300+ million? And given the possibility that The Acolyte might be a massive ratings trainwreck like Willow this would be doubly bad. The fact that Andor cost $250 million for one season is already difficult to believe, but The Hollywood Reporter has actual sources. So, nothing is impossible… but without actual extraordinary proof I would advise anyone not to take anything at face value here. These are people after all who depend on YouTube to earn their living, so they need content. Every week. Every day even. But it sure is entertaining!

The Star Wars Rumor Zone

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