Dave Filoni has been named Lucasfilm’s Chief Creative Officer, giving him a greater amount of control over current and upcoming Star Wars projects. Filoni was previously promoted to Lucafilm’s Executive Vice President and will hold both titles. The announcement was made during an interview with Vanity Fair in which he shared that he’ll not only have input when projects begin, up to now he’s sometimes only been pulled in after they’ve already been in development, but also working more closely with Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and Head of Development Carrie Beck. Both of whom he worked with on the Ahsoka series which recently finished its first season on Disney+.
Per Vanity Fair:
“Now I’m what’s called chief creative officer of Lucasfilm,” Filoni tells Vanity Fair, which places him into the development process much earlier and in a much more expansive capacity than his previous advisory duties. “In the past, in a lot of projects I would be brought into, I would see it after it had already developed a good ways.”
Filoni added “In this new role, it’s opened up to basically everything that’s going on,” and “When we’re planning the future of what we’re doing now, I’m involved at the inception phase.”
This news arrives as Disney/Lucasfilm are continuing to roll out the next phase of Star Wars projects. Filoni’s involvement with Star Wars goes back over a decade, ever since he worked alongside George Lucas on the award-winning The Clone Wars animated series. Since then he’s had a hand in many other series and is also working on a movie project. He shares that while he’s not essentially bossing people around he is acting in more of an advisory, or mentoring, capacity giving guidance to help teams tell the best story they can.
Per Vanity Fair:
“I’m not telling people what to do,” Filoni says. “But I do feel I’m trying to help them tell the best story that they want to tell. I need to be a help across the galaxy here, like a part of a Jedi Council almost.”
Not much has been said about Filoni’s movie project other than that it will continue the storyline about the origin of the Jedi which has been developing over the course of several Disney+ live-action series.