Ahsoka's Dave Filoni Promoted At Lucasfilm: Here's What That Means For Star Wars

As of November 2023, Dave Filoni will now serve as Lucasfilm's Chief Creative Officer. A veteran in building worlds within a galaxy far, far away, Filoni's career began in animation — contributing to acclaimed series like "Avatar: The Last Airbender" and "King of the Hill." But, as a die-hard Star Wars fan, Filoni began working for Lucasfilm in 2006 – working closely with George Lucas. He directed 2008's "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" and served as showrunner for the animated TV series of the same name. When Disney purchased Star Wars and Lucasfilm from Lucas, Filoni stayed on to craft "Star Wars Rebels" and has since helped helm live-action properties within Star Wars too. His latest venture, the 2023 Disney+ series "Ahsoka," brought several of his animated Star Wars characters into live-action and expanded the New Republic's lore in meaningful ways.

"Now I'm what's called Chief Creative Officer of Lucasfilm," Filoni told Vanity Fair. "In the past, in a lot of projects I would be brought into it, I would see it after it had already developed a good ways." Going forward, Filoni will oversee every "Star Wars" project earlier in development — giving the franchise the guiding authorial hand that many fans believe it's been missing. Kathleen Kennedy remains president of the studio, and longtime producer Carrie Beck has been promoted to head of development.

Since Disney took over Star Wars, the process of developing new stories has been somewhat muddled. The mixed response to the sequel trilogy can be traced back to one core problem: Lucasfilm didn't have a unifying three-film plan from the outset. This led to heavily mocked developments like the sudden return of Emperor Palpatine in the opening title crawl of "The Rise of Skywalker."

Though Kathleen Kennedy has been the president of Lucasfilm since the Disney acquisition, her role has been less creative and more business-focused. Filoni's new position as CCO will give the company a unifying narrative voice, working to ensure that all future projects align with Star Wars' overall creative goals. "In this new role, it's opened up to basically everything that's going on," Filoni told Vanity Fair. "When we're planning the future of what we're doing now, I'm involved at the inception phase."

Going off that description, it sounds like Filoni will be a kind of Kevin Feige figure. Likely, Filoni will continue to write and direct major projects too. His role is the kind of job that George Lucas once held, and since Filoni is widely viewed as Lucas' last proper apprentice, he's an easy choice.

Filoni certainly has detractors in the Star Wars fandom — those who disagree with his reliance on the old Expanded Universe or his approach to Force mysticism — but he's about as universally loved as anyone involved with the franchise can be at this point. Now that he's Lucasfilm's CCO, we can expect to see continued expansions on his favorite corners of the Star Wars universe. Characters like Ahsoka Tano, Ezra Bridger, and Sabine Wren likely aren't going anywhere soon. Filoni also loves exploring the mythic sides of the franchise, so we'll probably be going back to Mortis sooner rather than later. And, of course, he's known for adapting storylines from the Star Wars Legends continuity, particularly championing Grand Admiral Thrawn. 

Could his promotion to CCO herald the return of the Yuuzhan Vong? Of Darth Krayt? Or, fingers crossed, new stories in the Old Republic era? Only time will tell. What's easier to bank on — or at least hope for — is more cohesion between the disparate Star Wars movies, shows, comics, books, and video games. If he does his job, we won't have to complain anymore about Satine Kryze going unmentioned in "Obi-Wan Kenobi" or all those embarrassing "Rise of Skywalker" retcons. With Filoni at the helm, the future of Star Wars could be quite bright — if the Force wills it.