Outgoing Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy said that online negativity ‘spooked’ Rian Johnson out of making more Star Wars. Johnson has now briefly denied this. Update: After 2017’s The Last Jedi, director Rian Johnson was set to make three further Star Wars films. To date, they haven’t appeared. The reason, according to outgoing Lucasfilm boss Kathleen ... Star Wars | Rian Johnson denies being ‘spooked’ out of making new trilogy
Outgoing Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy said that online negativity ‘spooked’ Rian Johnson out of making more Star Wars. Johnson has now briefly denied this.
Update: After 2017’s The Last Jedi, director Rian Johnson was set to make three further Star Wars films. To date, they haven’t appeared. The reason, according to outgoing Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy, is because Johnson was ‘spooked’ by the negative online reaction to his earlier Star Wars episode.
Since then, Johnson has issued a brief denial of Kennedy’s story. Taking to Elon Musk’s Hellsite Formerly Known As Twitter (via Variety), the filmmaker responded to a news story about him with the words, “Lol zero spooked, sorry.”
It remains to be seen whether Johnson will make a more detailed response in the coming months. Since 2017, Johnson has been busy making mysteries rather than space fantasies; he’s made three entries in the Knives Out series of films for Netflix to date, as well as the hit TV series, Poker Face.
He’s occasionally reiterated his desire to return to the Star Wars franchise, though, so maybe we’ll still get that new Johnson trilogy one day.
Our original story follows…
16th January 2026: For some, writer-director Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi was the best entry in the Star Wars sequel trilogy; for a vocal subset of people, it was tantamount to sacrilege.
Divisive though it was, the 2017 chapter was a sizeable hit – it made less than its predecessor, The Force Awakens, but still made over $1.3bn.
In the aftermath, it was announced that Johnson would make his own trilogy of Star Wars films, unconnected from those that had come before it. To date, that trilogy hasn’t happened, though the filmmaker did pop up from time to time to reaffirm his desire to one day make it; “It would break my heart if I were finished,” he said in 2022, “if I couldn’t get back in that sandbox at some point.”
After The Last Jedi, however, Johnson embarked on a rather different trilogy of films: his Knives Out mystery thrillers, the first of which appeared on Netflix in 2019. Since then, we’ve had Glass Onion in 2022, and Wake Up Dead Man, which emerged in late 2025.
Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, who hired Johnson to make The Last Jedi all those years ago, has now stepped down from her role, ending a tenure lasting almost 14 years. In her ‘exit interview’ with Deadline, the subject of Johnson’s Star Wars trilogy came up, and she mentioned that the Knives Out movies had occupied much of the filmmaker’s time over the past seven years or so.
Kennedy also added, however, that Johnson was ‘spooked’ by the online reaction that enveloped The Last Jedi in 2017.
“I do believe he got spooked by the online negativity,” Kennedy said. “I think Rian made one of the best Star Wars movies. He’s a brilliant filmmaker and he got spooked. This is the rough part. When people come into this space, I have every filmmaker and actors say to me, ‘What’s going to happen?’ They’re a little scared.”
Kennedy also addressed the ire aimed in her direction by a subset of Star Wars fandom – look around on YouTube, and you’ll find a weird cottage industry of video-makers who talk endlessly about her unsuitability for the top job at Lucasfilm and criticising her handling of its biggest franchise.
“I’m honest, especially with the women that come into this space because they unfairly get targeted,” Kennedy said. “I don’t try to sugarcoat it. And I emphasize that it’s a very small group of people, with loud megaphones. I truly do not believe that it’s the majority of the fans. And I think we’re also in this weird world of where bots can affect things. You have to develop a tough skin.”
Lucasfilm will now be run by co-presidents, Lynwen Brennan and Dave Filoni, who will take control of a slate of films running up to 2030 and beyond. It’s still possible that Johnson may eventually return to the Star Wars universe at some later date.
