Lucasfilm knows that what fans and accountants most remember at the end of the day is not the creative turbulence that goes into a Star Wars film, but simply how each movie lands.
As long as record-breaking audiences are seated and sated, then most people don't care that Kathleen Kennedy is ploughing through directorial talent like a Rebel through rows of Stormtroopers, save one.
Rian Johnson has so far emerged publicly unscathed from The Last Jedi, which opens in December. Perhaps he should become the go-to director that Kennedy is looking for.
The Kennedy-led Lucasfilm announced last week that it was canning its second directing force of the northern summer, as Colin Trevorrow was relieved of his chair aboard Star Wars: Episode IX over script issues. That news came just more than two months after the studio fired Phil Lord and Chris Miller in the late stages of the Han Solo spinoff film, to be replaced by Ron Howard.
Who's to say that the Lucasfilm approach is wrong? In this high-stakes race that's built on collaboration, a studio is free to swap out drivers whenever it feels that performance has dipped or mission has diverged. Although it's hardly ideal, it's just part of the Sturm und Drang of steering these billion-dollar blockbusters across the finish line in the most commercially friendly form under deadline (or, as Han Solo would say, in under 12 parsecs).
