‘Lol Zero Spooked, Sorry’ – Rian Johnson Responds to Kathleen Kennedy’s Suggestions That ‘Online Negativity’ Put The Last Jedi Director Off Making More Star Wars

Star Wars: The Last Jedi manager Rian Johnson has responded to outgoing Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy's assertion that helium was enactment disconnected making much Star Wars arsenic helium "got spooked by the online negativity".

The Knives Out, Glass Onion, and Wake Up Dead Man creator replied to IGN’s societal media station of the communicative connected X with a simple, but to-the-point message: “lol zero spooked, sorry”.

lol zero spooked, atrocious https://t.co/1gWREzKxAO

In a Deadline interrogation with the departing Lucasfilm head, Kennedy suggested that Johnson decided not to proceed with aboriginal plans for him to marque his ain Star Wars trilogy, pursuing the aggravated online backlash to The Last Jedi.

"Once helium made the Netflix woody and went disconnected to commencement doing the Knives Out films, that has occupied a immense magnitude of his time," Kennedy remarked regarding wherefore Johnson didn’t proceed with the Star Wars projects. "And past I bash judge helium got spooked by the online negativity," she continued. "I deliberation Rian made 1 of the champion Star Wars movies. He's a superb filmmaker and helium got spooked. This is the unsmooth part. When radical travel into this space, I person each filmmaker and actors accidental to me, 'What's going to happen?' They’re a small scared."

This, of course, isn’t the archetypal clip Johnson has spoken astir his difficulties erstwhile it comes to Star Wars. In December 2025, helium stated that his intentions for The Last Jedi was to beryllium a movie that "shook the box" to upend instrumentality expectations, alternatively than attack its assemblage "kid gloves" and service up the aforesaid aged story.

"Having grown up a Star Wars fan, I cognize that happening wherever thing challenges it, and I cognize the recoil against that”, Johnson told Polygon. I cognize however determination tin beryllium infighting successful the satellite of Star Wars. But I besides cognize that the worst misdeed is to grip it with kid gloves."

Of course, Rian Johnson’s Star Wars trilogy isn’t the lone Star Wars task that volition apt ne'er spot the airy of day. In the precise aforesaid interrogation with Deadline, Kennedy besides mentioned the now-abandoned plans to marque a Ben Solo movie starring Adam Driver, stating that "anything’s a anticipation if somebody’s consenting to instrumentality a risk."

As for what we’ll really spot adjacent from a postulation far, acold away, 2026 volition spot The Mandalorian and Grogu, a spinoff movie from the deed Disney+ TV series. Then successful 20217, the standalone Ryan Gosling-starring Star Wars: Starfighter.

Simon Cardy is simply a Senior Editor astatine IGN who tin chiefly beryllium recovered skulking astir unfastened satellite games, indulging successful Korean cinema, oregon despairing astatine the authorities of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him connected Bluesky astatine @cardy.bsky.social.