Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy will be receiving the Irving G. Thalberg Award this year, which is an honorary Academy Award for production achievement. Kennedy, along with her husband and producing partner Frank Marshall will receive the honours. The award will be presented at the Academy’s 10th annual Governors Awards on November 18 at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland Center, California.
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that Kennedy will be the first woman to ever receive the Award.
“Choosing the honorees for its awards each year is the happiest of all the Board of Governors’ work. And this year, its selection of five iconic artists was made with universal acclaim by the Academy’s 54 spirited governors,” said Academy president John Bailey in a statement released on Wednesday, Variety reported.
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The Honorary Award, an Oscar statuette, is given “to honor extraordinary distinction in lifetime achievement, exceptional contributions to the state of motion picture arts and sciences, or for outstanding service to the Academy.”
Kennedy is famous for the Star Wars franchise, but the Lucasfilm president has made films all her life. To her credit, she has a total of 60-plus films to date. Her films have collectively earned over $15 billion at the box office over the years. Kennedy and Frank Marshall co-founded Amblin Productions with Steven Spielberg in 1981. The first production that made her name famous was on E.T. the Extra Terrestrial. Since then she has a come a long way. “The Sixth Sense” (1999), “Seabiscuit” (2003), “Munich” (2005), and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (2008), the Kennedy/Marshall Company productions have been unparalleled.
"We’re talking about the next ten years of Star Wars stories, and we’re looking at narratively where that might go," Kennedy confessed to The Star Wars Show last year when detailing the future of the saga. "Future stories beyond Episode IX with these new characters: Rey, Poe, Finn, BB-8."
Kennedy and Marshall are the first recipients of the Thalberg award since it was last presented to Francis Ford Coppola in 2010.
Feature Image Credit: Critical Hit
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