While Disney and Lucasfilm seem intent on continuing the Skywalker Saga by catching up with Daisy Ridley’s Rey for a post-Sequel Trilogy Star Wars adventure, its seems the House of Mouse rejected the opportunity to continue the story of another Skywalker.
Speaking to AP this week, Adam Driver revealed that he and director Steven Soderbergh were hoping to follow up their work on 2017’s Logan Lucky by reuniting in the galaxy far, far away for Star Wars: The Hunt for Ben Solo – a project they’d pitched to Lucasfilm’s story group, and had even gone as far as having a script written by Scott Z. Burns (The Laundromat) before running into a roadblock with the bosses at Disney.
“I always was interested in doing another Star Wars,” said Driver, who felt there was unfinished business for his character despite his apparent demise in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. “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.”
“[It] was one of the coolest scripts I had even been a part of,” Driver continued. “We presented the script to Lucasfilm. They loved the idea. They totally understood our angle and why we were doing it. 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. It was called The Hunt for Ben Solo and it was really cool. But it is no more, so I can finally talk about it.”
In the wake of Driver’s reveal, filmmaker Steven Soderbergh also took to social media to weigh in on the abandoned project, stating that: “For the record, I did not enjoy lying about the existence of The Hunt for Ben Solo, but it really did need to remain a secret… until now! Also, in the aftermath of the HFBS situation, I asked Kathy Kennedy if LFL had ever turned in a finished movie script for greenlight to Disney and had it rejected. She said no, this was a first.”
While Disney put the block on The Hunt for Ben Solo, Star Wars is gearing up for its return to the big screen, with Jon Favreau’s Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu set to arrive in May 2026 and the Ryan Gosling-led Star Wars: Starfighter in production now ahead of a May 2027 release.
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