Latest news with #KathleenKennedy
Yahoo
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Rian Johnson reveals 'nothing really happened' with his scrapped Star Wars trilogy
Rian Johnson has revealed that he didn't get very far with developing his Star Wars trilogy. The Knives Out filmmaker made his Star Wars directing debut with 2017's The Last Jedi, and was rumoured to be working on another trilogy in the sci-fi franchise. Lifting the lid on what happened with the project, Johnson revealed that his talks with Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy didn't progress very far because he became preoccupied with his Knives Out murder-mystery franchise. "Nothing really happened with it," he told Rolling Stone. "We had a great time working together (on The Last Jedi), and they said, 'Let's keep doing it.' I said, 'Great!' I would kick ideas around with Kathy. "The short version is Knives Out happened. I went off and made Knives Out, and was off to the races, busy making murder mysteries." Johnson added that they had a "very conceptual" idea for his trilogy, but there "was never any outline or treatment or anything" because Knives Out came into the picture "fairly quickly after". The director launched his whodunnit franchise, starring Daniel Craig as the detective Benoit Blanc, in 2019 and followed it up with the second chapter, Glass Onion, in 2022. The third film, Wake Up Dead Man, will open the London Film Festival in October. While Johnson intends to keep making Knives Out films, he would be thrilled to work in the Star Wars universe again in the future. "It's the sort of thing if, down the line, there's an opportunity to do it, or do something else in Star Wars, I would be thrilled. But right now I'm just doing my own stuff, and pretty happy," he said.
Malaysian Reserve
10-07-2025
- Business
- Malaysian Reserve
Marco's Pizza Named Nominee in Newsweek's Reader's Choice Awards for Best Pizza Chain
With Signature Flavor, Innovative Menus, and Unmatched Guest Experience, Marco's Pizza Secures Coveted Nomination TOLEDO, Ohio, July 10, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Marco's Pizza, one of the nation's fastest-growing pizza brands, is proud to announce its nomination in Newsweek's prestigious Reader's Choice Awards contest for Best Pizza Chain. This honor comes on the heels of continued brand momentum, menu innovation, and a steadfast commitment to quality and guest experience. Voting for the Reader's Choice Awards opened Thursday, July 3 at 12:00 p.m. ET and runs through Thursday, July 31 at 11:59 a.m. ET. Marco's Pizza fans and flavor lovers everywhere are encouraged to cast their vote at 'This nomination is a tribute to the fans who crave our bold flavors and to the team members who deliver handcrafted excellence in every store, every day,' said Denise Lauer, Chief Marketing Officer, Marco's Franchising, LLC. 'It motivates us to continue evolving, elevating, and innovating – all while staying true to the quality and service our guests expect.' From Humble Beginnings to a National FavoriteFounded with a vision to serve authentic Italian quality, Marco's Pizza has grown from a single store into a beloved nationwide favorite. With fresh dough made in-house daily, a crust baked to golden perfection, and the founder's signature sauce, every Marco's pizza is topped with a fresh, never-frozen blend of three real cheeses and premium ingredients – a testament to the brand's craftsmanship and culinary heritage. Inspired Innovation and Elevated ExperienceThis recognition follows standout menu innovation that delighted guests with new flavor experiences, led by Marco's culinary team under the direction of Chef Kathleen Kennedy. From the Fiery Flavors Menu to fan favorites like the Margherita Magnifico, Triple Pepperoni Magnifico, and indulgent Chocolate CinnaSquares made with premium Ghirardelli® chocolate, Marco's delivers bold new tastes inspired by consumer trends and feedback. Most recently, Marco's introduced the limited-time Pepperoni Bread – a unique twist on America's favorite topping, featuring crispy shredded pepperoni layered on Marco's fresh-made dough, and topped with a trio of fresh cheeses, garlic sauce and Romesan seasoning. This new addition celebrates Marco's signature pepperoni lineup: classic, Old World, and crispy shredded – delivering next-level flavor in every bite. Recognized for Outstanding ServiceEarlier this year, Marco's was named to Newsweek's 2025 list of America's Best Customer Service. Notably, Marco's is the only brand among America's top five pizza chains to secure a spot on this year's list, rising to No. 3. This climb from its 2024 ranking further underscores Marco's dedication to providing an exceptional guest experience. To learn more about Marco's Pizza, find a location near you, or place an order, visit or download the Marco's mobile app on the App Store or Google Play. For more information Marco's Pizza franchise opportunities, visit or contact Beth Heminger at bheminger@ or 419-279-5795. ABOUT MARCO'S PIZZA Headquartered in Toledo, Ohio, Marco's Pizza is one of the fastest-growing pizza brands in the United States. Marco's was founded in 1978 by Italian-born Pasquale ('Pat') Giammarco and thrives to deliver a high-quality pizza experience, known for its dough made from scratch and its three fresh signature cheeses. The company has grown from its roots as a beloved Ohio brand to operate and franchise over 1,200 stores in 35 states with locations in Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, and Mexico. Most recently, Marco's was recognized as America's Favorite Restaurant in the Limited-Service Pizza category by Nation's Restaurant News using Technomic Ignite Consumer 2024 dataꝉꝉ. Other recent accolades include ranking No. 48 on Entrepreneur Magazine's 2024 'Franchise 500' ranking, earning a coveted spot as the only top 5 pizza chain to rank on Newsweek's 2025 'America's Best Customer Service' in pizza chains list, earning a spot on QSR's Top 50, and being featured on Nation's Restaurant News' prestigious 'Top 500' ranking. ꝉꝉAccording to Technomic's 2024 America's Favorite Restaurants data, Marco's Pizza secured the top spot in the Limited-Service Pizza category with a 53.4% composite top-box rating, indicating the share of recent guests who gave the brand the highest possible rating for each of the guest experience attributes. Data for America's Favorite Chains comes from Technomic Ignite Consumer, which collects information about how brands impact consumers and how consumers interact with those brands, via online surveys. See here for more information:
BBC News
28-06-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Why JFK flew to Lincolnshire for a deeply personal visit
US president John F Kennedy was one of the most influential figures in the 20th Century and his assassination in 1963 was a watershed moment in American and world history. Just months before that tragedy, he embarked on his final overseas trip, packed with diplomatic talks with world leaders and ground-breaking oratory. What is less well-known is an undisclosed detour to a Lincolnshire air station for a deeply personal visit to a quiet English month of June 1963 was a punishing one for John F in Berlin – where he delivered his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner speech" – he went on to Ireland, then the UK, before heading to Italy and a trip to see Pope Paul VI at the national media followed his every move except, it seems, for a small detour he made in Britain on 29 June. One sunny day, Air Force One landed on the runway at RAF Waddington, near Lincoln. The president stepped out for what was to be a very personal pilgrimage. Waiting for him on the runway was a welcome party including station commander Gp Capt Finch, the chief constable of Lincolnshire and members of the ground crew. But the president was not there for diplomacy.A US Sikorsky military helicopter then took Kennedy to Derbyshire. There he would visit the grave of his younger sister, Kathleen, who was buried in Edensor church on the Chatsworth had been married to William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington and heir to the dukedom of Devonshire, but had been tragically killed in a plane crash in 1948. Christopher Dean, from the RAF Waddington Heritage Centre, explains that the base was chosen because it was the "largest close airfield to Chatsworth House".Although the visit was kept relatively quiet, locals from the Lincoln and Waddington area remember the day Air Force One touched down in the Wells, from Waddington, was 12 at the time. "As I recall, he landed on a Saturday so we were not at school. On any other day we would wander about the base freely, but on that day we were not allowed because of the tightened security."I remember the Boeing aircraft landing and the helicopter taking off. There was also a second escort helicopter, but I wasn't sure if that was to confuse people as to which one he was actually in." In terms of security, although the visit was an addition to the official schedule, planning would have been meticulous, Christopher says."He would not have suddenly popped in unannounced, there would have been a huge itinerary."Peter Cake, another local boy in 1963, recalls how his grandfather, Sidney, an employee of the telephone company that later became BT, had a particular part to play in the security arrangements."He told me that they had secured all the phone lines for JFK's visit so nobody could listen in," he even has the letter his grandfather received from the White House thanking him for the role he played that day. The president's party that day included his sister Jean and his defence secretary Robert man who was present was BBC reporter Sharon Edwards' father, David, who was working in air traffic control at Waddington."My dad always said that when President Kennedy landed at RAF Waddington he was on duty and he was the one that gave permission for the plane to land," Sharon a few hours the president and his entourage made the return journey to Waddington, where they reembarked on Air Force One and flew on to Sussex to meet Harold Macmillan, the prime minister. It was not the first time one of the Kennedy family had visited Lincolnshire. In 1938, JFK's father Joseph – then US ambassador to the UK – made his first major speech from the garden of Fydell house in Boston. He stressed the close connections between the Lincolnshire town and Boston in the US, where he was that visit, Kennedy senior also took part in a procession through the town and a service in St Botolph's Church, which is better-known as the Stump, followed by a meal at Boston Guildhall. Twenty-five years later, and JFK's visit to Lincolnshire would take on even greater significance as the last overseas trip for the president. Just a few months later, he was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November Lincolnshire stopover left a lasting impression on those who remember it."It's a slice of Lincoln history and my family's history, and the fact that my father told us about it means that it really meant something to him," Sharon to more podcasts from the Secret Lincolnshire to highlights from Lincolnshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here.
Yahoo
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Star Wars' 'Looks Terrible' in Screening of Long Lost Original 1977 Version
A long-lost original print of 1977's Star Wars was recovered from an archive and screened for a group of cinema aficionados and die-hard fans. An audience was finally permitted to watch the first released version of the film — nearly perfectly preserved and unfaded — that creator George Lucas famously suppressed from being publicly shown on a big screen for 47 years. The British Film Institute event was introduced by Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy, who joked that the screening was 'not illegal.' More from The Hollywood Reporter Colin Trevorrow Talks Producing 'Deep Cover,' the Return of 'Jurassic World' and Star Wars Detachment Carrie Fisher Had to Encourage Mark Hamill to "Embrace" 'Star Wars': "Get Over Yourself, You're Luke Skywalker" Mark Hamill Rules Out Doing More 'Star Wars' 'What you're going to see is in fact the first print, and I'm not even sure there's another one quite like it,' Kennedy said. 'It's that rare.' And the result? An attending film critic from The Telegraph who attended the screening last week admitted the unaltered original 'looks terrible' by modern standards. While fans understandably tend to focus on Lucas' most intrusive creative moves (adding the jarring CG version of Jabba the Hutt, having Greedo shoot first, stuffing distracting CG creatures and droids into Mos Eisley), the amount of subsequent polish and tweaks over the years is so extensive that many aspects of the original look just as noticeably fake as the egregious CG. 'I felt like I was watching a completely different film,' wrote Robbie Collin, who called the print a 'joyously craggy, grubby, stolidly carpentered spectacle' that 'looks more like fancy dress than grand sci-fi epic.' 'Every scene had the visceral sense of watching actual people photographed doing actual things with sets and props that had been physically sawn and glued into place. The slapstick between C-3PO and R2-D2 looked clunkier, and therefore funnier; the Death Star panels were less like supercomputers than wooden boards with lights stuck on, and so better attuned to the frequency of make-believe. It felt less like watching a blockbuster in the modern sense than the greatest game of dressing up in the desert anyone ever played.' A vlogger for Cinema Savvy, George Aldridge, who says he's seen A New Hope at least 100 times said the screening was 'incredibly special,' but likewise made him realize 'there are so many great changes to the Star Wars films; it's the ones we dislike that have always overshadowed them.' He, too, noted the print was so radically different that 'it felt like watching the film for the first time.' 'From day one, George Lucas has been making changes to these films,' he said. 'It hasn't just been here's one big scene change there. It's been the little nuance. It's been the sound effects, it's been the smallest details — which you do not notice until now you don't see it.' Aldridge noted differences 'like R2-D2 isn't hiding behind rocks when the Tusken Raiders come for them … there are so many little things that I noticed the cantina … there's been cleaning up of James Earl Jones' voice [as Darth Vader]…' So, ironically, a version of Star Wars that Lucas for so long didn't want to shown seems to give viewers more respect for Lucas — due to gaining some appreciation for his extensive and controversial tinkering. Both reviewers noted, however, that the theater burst into applause when Han Solo (Harrison Ford) shot first during the Greedo confrontation. Enthused Aldridge: 'Han Solo was so much cooler.' Lucas' tweaks to the print began with the very first theatrical rerelease of Star Wars in 1981. Until now, the studio has only permitted the screening of various Special Editions. BFI negotiated with Disney and Lucasfilm for the rights for a back-to-back screening on the festival's opening night. This particular BFI print was stored for four decades at a temperature of 23 degrees Fahrenheit to preserve its quality. Lucas, over the years, has been rather firm about not screening the original and, when asked in 2004 by the Associated Press why he doesn't simply release the original version along with the Special Editions, rather grumpily shot back, 'The Special Edition, that's the one I wanted out there. The other movie, it's on VHS, if anybody wants it. I'm not going to spend the — we're talking millions of dollars here — the money and the time to refurbish that, because to me, it doesn't really exist anymore. It's like this is the movie I wanted it to be, and I'm sorry you saw a half-completed film and fell in love with it. But I want it to be the way I want it to be. I'm the one who has to take responsibility for it. I'm the one who has to have everybody throw rocks at me all the time, so at least if they're going to throw rocks at me, they're going to throw rocks at me for something I love rather than something I think is not very good, or at least something I think is not finished.' Best of The Hollywood Reporter 13 of Tom Cruise's Most Jaw-Dropping Stunts Hollywood Stars Who Are One Award Away From an EGOT 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now
Gizmodo
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
The Future of ‘Star Wars' May Not Be as Connected as We Expect
Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy had some encouraging yet surprising thoughts about the future of the franchise. One of the best, and worst, things about Star Wars in recent years is just how connected everything has been. It meant characters who may have at first seemed tangential, like Cassian Andor in Rogue One, could be greatly expanded in something like Andor. It also meant audiences who had never watched an animated show like Clone Wars or Rebels might be left confused with the stories in something like Ahsoka. In those cases and others, there always seemed to be some kind of guardrails on what was possible in a galaxy far, far away. But, if a new quote is to be believed, that may be changing. Recently, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy spoke at a screening of the original Star Wars in London (you can read about the event here) and she commented on how the future of Star Wars is moving from the interconnectivity that has driven the recent history of Star Wars. 'I really think that now we're in a position where it's broadened the possibility of stories and filmmakers we can bring in to tell stories that mean something to them,' Kennedy said at the event. 'It doesn't necessarily have to connect to every little thing thats been done in Star Wars; it can actually be a standalone story that then builds into many, many other stories.' The first example of this is Star Wars: Starfighter, the 2027 release that starts filming in September. Shawn Levy directs, Ryan Gosling and Mia Goth star, and while we don't know the specifics of the plot just yet, everyone has been insistent that the story is standalone and is unlikely to connect to anything else in the Star Wars universe. Which is easy since it takes place five years after the events of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. That'll be harder for other upcoming Star Wars projects such as Ahsoka season two, which is currently filming, and The Mandalorian & Grogu, which will be out in May. Those will, clearly, be connected to other stories, as will other confirmed projects such as the Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy Rey movie and Dave Filoni's Shadow of the Empire movie. The films that seem to speak more to Kennedy's statement are James Mangold's Dawn of the Jedi movie, which will take place millennia before any other Star Wars story, and Simon Kinberg's trilogy, which is said to be the next phase of the overall Star Wars story. Also, maybe the Taika Waititi movie that is still in the works. The key to Kennedy's statement, though, is the end of it. To reset itself, to make itself into the power it once was, Star Wars needs fresh faces and stories, which can only be achieved through unique, original. standalone stories. From there, though, those ideas will have to 'build into many, many other stories.' So the idea is almost a reset so that they can get back to where we have been the last 10 years or so. The interconnective nature of Star Wars isn't going away, it's just being rebuilt. Are you confident Kennedy is telling the truth here? Will these new Star Wars movies be standalone? Or will that, in some way, hurt the franchise? Let us know below.
