After spending the past six years telling Star Wars stories on streaming, Lucasfilm is bringing the franchise back to theaters next year with The Mandalorian and Grogu. Star Wars: Starfighter will follow in 2027, though the future beyond those movies is less certain.
The news that Simon Kinberg is developing a new trilogy has been met with a mixed response from fans; he was a producer on Star Wars Rebels, but is best known for bombs like Dark Phoenix and Fantastic Four. The projects announced at Star Wars Celebration in 2023 are also in limbo, with a Rey feature, a story about the First Jedi, and Dave Filoni's "Mando-verse" crossover seemingly no closer to becoming a reality.
It turns out that another Star Wars movie was in development for two years. If the reaction on social media is any indication, it would have gotten fans far more excited than any of the projects listed above.
In an interview with AP News (via SFFGazette.com), Star Wars sequel trilogy star Adam Driver revealed that he and filmmaker Steven Soderbergh were developing The Hunt for Ben Solo. Lucasfilm loved it; Disney executives, however, were less keen.
"I always was interested in doing another 'Star Wars,'" Driver told the site. "I had been talking about doing another one since 2021. Kathleen [Kennedy] had reached out. I always said: With a great director and a great story, I’d be there in a second. I loved that character and loved playing him."
Saying he had "unfinished business" with Kylo Ren after the character found redemption and died in the closing moments of 2019's The Rise of Skywalker, Driver enlisted Soderbergh, who teamed with screenwriter Rebecca Blunt (Logan Lucky) to crack the story. Scott Z. Burns (Contagion) then started work on the screenplay, and they pitched the movie to Lucasfilm's Kathleen Kennedy, Cary Beck, and Dave Filoni.
"We presented the script to Lucasfilm. They loved the idea," Driver confirmed. "They totally understood our angle and why we were doing it. It was called 'The Hunt for Ben Solo' and it was really cool. We took it to Bob Iger and Alan Bergman and they said no. They didn’t see how Ben Solo was alive. And that was that."
Describing the first draft as "one of the coolest f***ing scripts I had ever been a part of," while Soderbergh said in a statement, "I really enjoyed making the movie in my head. I’m just sorry the fans won’t get to see it."
Kylo Ren emerged from the divisive Star Wars sequel trilogy as one of its most popular characters, and fans were devastated when he was killed off. Still, it was a heroic end for the former Supreme Leader of the First Order as he saved Rey's life.
A movie following his redemption would have arguably been a hugely exciting prospect for fans, and it's baffling that Iger and Bergman couldn't wrap their head around Ben surviving his wounds when he "died" in the same movie that saw Emperor Palpatine rise from the grave.
Explaining his and Soderbergh's approach to the cancelled movie, Driver said, "We wanted to be judicial about how to spend money and be economical with it, and do it for less than most but in the same spirit of what those movies are, which is handmade and character-driven."
"'Empire Strikes Back' being, in my opinion, the standard of what those movies were," he continued. "But he is, to me, one of my favorite directors of all time. He lives his code, lives his ethics, doesn’t compromise."
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