If the Force had its way, Ben Solo would well be on his way to a, well, solo outing. Alas, Disney canned the idea — despite Lucasfilm’s approval — and original director Steven Soderbergh (Ocean‘s trilogy and film franchise) opened up about his feelings on the surprise cancellation.
Speaking to BK Mag, the Ocean’s trilogy filmmaker shared that Kathleen Kennedy’s frustration over the matter, as revealed in an exit interview with Deadline, “was no surprise” and echoed the sentiment of everyone involved in the project, which would have seen Adam Driver (Marriage Story) reprising his role as Kylo Ren.
“We were all frustrated,” he said. “You know, that was two and a half years of free work for me and Adam and [writer] Rebecca Blunt. When Adam and I discussed him talking about it publicly, I said, ‘Look, do not editorialise or speculate about the why. Just say what happened, because all we know is what happened.’ The stated reason was, ‘We don’t think Ben Solo could be alive.’ And that was all we were told. And so there’s nothing to do about it, you know, except move on.”
“I’d kind of made the movie in my head, and just felt bad that nobody else was going to get to see it,” the director continued. “I thought the conversation was strictly going to be a practical one— where they go, what is this going to cost? And I had a really good answer for that. But it never even got to that point. It’s insane. We’re all very disappointed.”
The sequel was first brought up to The Associated Press last year, with the title revealed to be The Hunt for Ben Solo. Details were kept under wraps, but it was set to take place after 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker and breathe life into what Driver called “one of the coolest f**king scripts” that he had ever been part of. Disney’s reasoning for axing the project was attributed to not understanding how Ben could still be alive — bizarre logic in itself, considering how various presumably dead characters have been brought back in the Star Wars universe. Most notably, Palpatine was brought back as the main villain in The Rise of Skywalker, disregarding his demise at the end of 1983’s Return of the Jedi.
For now, The Hunt of Ben Solo remains in the vault, and only time can tell if the idea will be picked up sometime in the future. The silver lining is that fans on social media have rallied support for the project, with calls for Disney to put it back into development.
Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth’s theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia’s greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.
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