That’s not to say Kennedy is dictating exact instructions to each of her directors. But like Kevin Feige (the producer overseeing the Marvel films), John Lasseter (in charge of Disney and Pixar animation), Jason Blum (the mogul behind almost every horror film hit of recent years), and Toby Emmerich (the chief content officer at Warner Bros.), the buck stops with Kennedy on every major decision, and she sets the overall tone of the franchise, a multi-billion dollar enterprise of major importance to Disney’s shareholders. Producers have always been crucial in Hollywood. But not since the industry’s “Golden Age” of the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s have individual executives wielded so much influence.

That’s been apparent on Star Wars from the minute Kennedy took control. Her first hire, Abrams, was an experienced Hollywood producer and director who had already worked on big franchises like Mission: Impossible and Star Trek, who helped deliver a crowd-pleasing movie on a tight schedule after the film’s original script, by Michael Arndt, was hastily revamped. (In a statement announcing Abrams’s return, Kennedy said, “With The Force Awakens, J.J. delivered everything we could have possibly hoped for.”) But aside from Abrams, Kennedy’s initial hires for Star Wars were the same brand of young, up-and-coming directors who had made their name quickly and shown some promise with larger-scale genre work.

Rian Johnson, picked for Episode VIII, burst onto the scene with the indie noir Brick in 2005 and had gotten raves and solid box-office totals for his time-travel drama Looper (2012). Trevorrow, similarly, emerged with a small-budget indie (also about time travel) called Safety Not Guaranteed in 2012, which he parlayed into the moneymaking sensation Jurassic World. Gareth Edwards, hired to helm the gritty spinoff Rogue One, had made the well-liked indie Monsters in 2010 and then jumped to the awe-inspiring Godzilla in 2014. Josh Trank, hired for an untitled spinoff, had the found-footage superhero film Chronicle under his belt and was busy with a Fantastic Four reboot. Phil Lord and Chris Miller, picked for a Han Solo spinoff film, started out in animation and then turned the 21 Jump Street reboot into a surprise hit.

Of all the directors I just named, only Johnson has emerged unscathed (The Last Jedi is due out in December after a drama-free production). Edwards did get to make Rogue One, but the film was extensively reshot by the director Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton) with a number of scenes, including the ending, reportedly being changed wholesale. Lord and Miller were fired in the middle of production on their Han Solo movie, due out next summer, over Kennedy’s apparent dissatisfaction with their reliance on improvisation and goofy tone (Ron Howard was hired as their replacement). Trank never even got to make his movie, losing the gig after the calamitous release of his Fantastic Four (he said he stepped down because he wanted a lower profile). And now Trevorrow, who had been writing story treatments for Episode IX with his usual collaborator Derek Connolly, is gone.