When the Star Wars franchise will hire a female director, according to Kathleen Kennedy

Just before the release of ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ J.J. Abrams revealed that he believed Ava DuVernay should direct her very own instalment to the series.

So far, Kathleen Kennedy, the president of Lucasfilm and the one who is overseeing the development of the franchise, hasn’t found room for Ava DuVernay or any other female filmmaker. But Kennedy has now insisted that the series is committed to hiring a female director, and she’s even revealed when she’ll come on board, too.

“We want to make sure that when we bring a female director to do ‘Star Wars’, they’re set up for success,” Kennedy explained to Variety. “They’re gigantic films, and you can’t come into them with essentially no experience.”

“We want to really start to focus in on people we would love to work with and see what kinds of things they’re doing to progress up that ladder now, and pull them in when the time is right.”

So rather than the onus being on Kathleen Kennedy and her decision making team, it’s apparently up to female filmmakers to make enough progress to direct their own ‘Star Wars’ film. Interesting.

DuVernay’s recent career choices suggest she is now looking to position herself for her very own ‘Star Wars’ film. Having overseen ‘Selma’ and the critically acclaimed documentary ‘13^th’ in recent years, Ava DuVernay is currently working on an adaptation of the 1963 sci-fi fantasy ‘A Wrinkle In Time’ for Disney.

Meanwhile she’s likely to face competition from Patty Jenkins who is putting the finishing touches to ‘Wonder Woman’, as well as Michelle MacLaren, Lexi Alexander, Angelina Jolie, and Sam Taylor-Johnson.

There has been some backlash to Kathleen Kennedy’s comments. Critics have insisted that Kathleen Kennedy should use the ‘Star Wars’ franchise to break Hollywood’s trend of overlooking female directors, rather than waiting for these filmmakers to prove themselves at another studio before then hiring them.

The next opportunity for a female director to oversee a ‘Star Wars’ film will come in 2020, when the third Anthology film, which is still yet to be titled, is released, while it’s safe to assume that another ‘Star Wars’ trilogy will follow ‘Episode 8’ and ‘Episode 9’, which are due out in 2017 and 2019, respectively.

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[Images via Lucasfilm]