Kathleen Kennedy

This year’s Star Wars Celebration will take place in Orlando (good news for those of you who couldn’t make it across the pond last year), and as it’s the 40th anniversary of the iconic franchise, you can expect some pretty major things. While we wait to learn more about Lucasfilm’s plans for the 2017 convention, the studio has unveiled a beautiful new poster along with a few details regarding the first panel of the year.

Without knowing the scope of Carrie Fisher’s role in the upcoming Star Wars sequels, it’s difficult to speculate about how Lucasfilm might address her recent passing. But a new report has uncovered key details (and potential spoilers) regarding General Leia’s narrative arc in Episodes VIII and IX, and reveals that Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy is planning to meet with director Colin Trevorrow next week to contemplate their options for Leia’s role in the forthcoming sequels.

Earlier this week, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy made headlines when she suggested that the time was not quite right for a female Star Wars director. In our own write-up of her comments, we noted that the reasoning behind Kennedy’s comments was sound, if not a little depressing: there’s an added degree of pressure on any female director, and the last thing Kennedy wants to do is put someone in a situation where they cannot succeed. Still, with so many male filmmakers seemingly being thrust from anonymity to nine-figure productions, Kennedy’s comments also hinted at an institutional double-standard that is a source of frustration to so many.

When the rumors began to spread that Lucasfilm wanted Chris Pratt to star in a new Indiana Jones reboot, many “insiders” tried to refute those claims by saying an Indiana Jones reboot would never happen. But now, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy has confirmed that a new Indiana Jones movie is on the way, saying it “will one day be made” at Disney.