Lucasfilm Sued For Firing Star Wars Producer After Just A Few Weeks On New Show
Producer Karyn McCarthy is suing Lucasfilm for wrongful termination, claiming the studio started souring on her when she asked to be paid for her work.
A Lucasfilm executive producer is claiming that the studio is leaning into the dark side of the Force after they removed her from her position on The Acolyte without rhyme or reason. According to Variety, Ballers executive producer Karyn McCarthy says that she was handed a “wrongful termination” from the project just weeks into production. In her filed complaint, McCarthy’s lawyers say that she in turn lost the chance to obtain a job on Apple’s series Sugar, a position that would have given her a lofty paycheck.
Now, McCarthy’s legal team is taking shots at Lucasfilm, claiming that they took away both work opportunities from the executive producer and “deprived” her of a position that would have raked in “millions of dollars over the [life] of the series.” As we mentioned, insult was allegedly added to injury, as McCarthy was also being sought out by Apple to back their production of Sugar, a job that her agent David Morris claims would have made the executive producer the “highest paid producer at Apple.” By the time Lucasfilm delivered the devastating blow, the window had already closed on McCarthy’s chance to hop aboard the Sugar train, leaving her completely jobless.
According to the filing, the ink on the contract between McCarthy and Lucasfilm had been dry for two weeks before the studio decided that they no longer wanted to work with her. While the studio hasn’t released their side of the story just yet, McCarthy has alleged that the trouble started when she asked to be paid, with Lucasfilm saying they hadn’t yet made a deal, despite the executive producer already working on the Star Wars-based series. In a statement, McCarthy’s legal team spoke of her long-running career in Hollywood and that while filing a lawsuit against the studio was the last thing they wanted to do, it was essentially their only option with Lucasfilm unwilling to hold up their end of the agreement.
As for The Acolyte, the Lucasfilm-backed production will take Star Wars fans on a journey back to the tail end of the High Republic years where the dark side is lying in wait to wreak havoc. Set somewhere around a century before the events of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, the series will follow a now-graduated Padawan who joins forces with her Jedi Master to uncover a mystery, but the deeper they go, the more troubling things will become as the answers they seek lie in the darkest parts of the force.
The last year has seen a slew of casting announcements for the Lucasfilm production which will star Amandla Stenberg (The Hunger Games) as the leading Padawan with an ensemble cast including Manny Jacinto (The Good Place), Lee Jung-jae (Squid Game), Dafne Keen (Logan), Jodie Turner-Smith (After Yang), Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix franchise), Charlie Barnett (Chicago Fire), Dean-Charles Chapman (Game of Thrones), Rebecca Henderson, and Margarita Levieva.
Currently in production, the latest Star Wars-based project to come from Lucasfilm is already drawing the attention of fans who have loved other Disney+ titles like The Mandalorian, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Andor. Building onto their feature-length lineup with these shorter, yet just as in-depth stories, Lucasfilm is continuing to create an arsenal of content for audiences to enjoy for years to come.
