In a revelation that’s sure to sting for Star Wars fans, Adam Driver has confirmed that he and Steven Soderbergh spent two years developing a Star Wars sequel that was ultimately shut down by Disney. Yes, you read that right. Driver, who portrayed Kylo Ren across the sequel trilogy, told AP that the project — titled The Hunt for Ben Solo — would have taken place after The Rise of Skywalker and centered on his character’s post-redemption journey. The film was co-written by Soderbergh and Rebecca Blunt, with Scott Z. Burns later joining to pen the script.

Driver said he approached Soderbergh with an idea that explored Ben Solo’s unfinished arc — a more intimate, character-driven continuation that mirrored The Empire Strikes Back in tone and scale. The duo pitched it to Kennedy, Cary Beck, and Dave Filoni, who reportedly “loved the idea.”

“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.”

He described the finished script as “one of the coolest [expletive] scripts I had ever been a part of.”

Soderbergh, ever the minimalist, issued his own response:

“I really enjoyed making the movie in my head. I’m just sorry the fans won’t get to see it.”

Representatives for Disney and Lucasfilm declined to comment.

Why Did Disney Reject an Adam Driver Star Wars Movie?

Driver’s version of the film was meant to explore the spiritual and emotional fallout of Ben Solo’s redemption, picking up after his sacrifice in The Rise of Skywalker. The concept reportedly aimed to combine the gritty, grounded approach of Soderbergh’s filmmaking with the moral complexity of Star Wars’ most mythic storytelling. For Driver, the project represented a chance to finish what he started:

“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,’ in my opinion, is the standard of what those movies were. And [Soderbergh] lives his code, lives his ethics, doesn’t compromise.”

Let’s be honest — if you have a generational actor and a hugely popular character audiences are still obsessed with, and that actor wants to make another Star Wars, you let him. Instead, Disney executives reportedly balked at the logistics of resurrecting Ben Solo. In the grand tradition of Hollywood what-ifs, The Hunt for Ben Solo now joins the growing list of Star Wars projects that were “loved by Lucasfilm” but never made it past corporate veto.

via Collider