Soderbergh On Scrapped “Ben Solo” Frustration

Late last year came news about Steven Soderbergh’s rejected “The Hunt for Ben Solo” film.

The filmmaker, along with actor Adam Driver and writer Rebecca Blunt, teamed up to develop a film that would’ve taken place after the events of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” and follow Driver’s Ben Solo/Kylo Ren.

However, it was revealed that Disney’s top brass (namely Bob Iger and Alan Bergman) rejected it despite everyone at Lucasfilm (including Kathleen Kennedy) being pleased with the project.

Now, during a recent interview with BKMAG, Soderbergh spoke about how he share’s Kennedy’s disappointment over the cancellation of the project which he, Driver and Blunt spent a long time working on:

“It was no surprise that she [Kennedy] was frustrated. We were all frustrated. You know, that was two and a half years of free work for me and Adam and Rebecca Blunt.

When Adam and I discussed him talking about it publicly, I said, ‘Look, do not editorialize 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.

And as I posted, I’d kind of made the movie in my head, and just felt bad that nobody else was going to get to see it. 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.”

Since the cancelled movie was revealed, fans have been rallying to convince the studio to reconsider moving forward with the project, but so far there’s been no movement.