Recent reports reveal just how close Steven Soderbergh’s Star Wars spin-off The Hunt For Ben Solo came to going into production – including a $3m script. NB: The following contains an inevitable spoiler for 2019’s The Rise Of Skywalker. Update: It’s now emerged just how close director Steven Soderbergh’s Star Wars film – called The ... Star Wars | More details emerge from the cancelled Hunt For Ben Solo
Recent reports reveal just how close Steven Soderbergh’s Star Wars spin-off The Hunt For Ben Solo came to going into production – including a $3m script.
NB: The following contains an inevitable spoiler for 2019’s The Rise Of Skywalker.
Update: It’s now emerged just how close director Steven Soderbergh’s Star Wars film – called The Hunt For Ben Solo – actually came to happening. The filmmaker himself took to Bluesky to add some additional information to earlier reports, while a report at The Playlist reveals that screenwriter Scott Z Burns was paid a hefty $3m to write the script.
According to Soderbergh, Lucasfilm was happy with that script and the film was given the greenlight, with Adam Driver set to reprise his role as the former Kylo Ren, son of Han. The project was subsequently nixed by Disney’s executives, seemingly because they didn’t buy the idea that Ben Solo survived the events of The Rise Of Skywalker.
The Hunt For Ben Solo cancelled, Soderbergh asked Kathleen Kennedy whether a Star Wars film had ever been cancelled this close to going into production, and she replied that it was a first. It’s quite a situation.
Star Wars fans – or a vocal set of them – have made their feelings public. Planes have dragged messages across the sky demanding that Disney resurrect the movie, while billboards have emerged in Times Square expressing the same sentiment.
As far as Disney’s concerned, the project is effectively dead, with Soderbergh and Driver released from their contracts – hence why they’ve now been quite open about the defunct movie. Might fan demand convince Disney to change its mind? We’ve seen how online support can will things like Deadpool and the Justice League Snyder Cut into existence, so there’s at least a glimmer of a possibility.
Our original story follows…
21st October 2025: Lucasfilm has form when it comes to commissioning then quietly shutting down Star Wars projects, including potential films by directors Guillermo del Toro and Patty Jenkins.
Here’s a new one to add to the list: a spin-off movie featuring Adam Driver’s sequel trilogy character, Ben Solo, and directed by Ocean’s 11 filmmaker Steven Soderbergh.
Driver first talked about the venture in a new interview with the Associated Press, revealing that the project had a name: The Hunt For Ben Solo.
“I always was interested in doing another Star Wars,” Driver said. “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.”
According to Driver, this wasn’t some passing idea, either: Driver and Soderbergh spent two years working on an outline with writer Rebecca Blunt, before screenwriter Scott Z Burns (Contagion, Side Effects, The Report) wrote the script.
The result was “one of the coolest [flipping] scripts I have ever been a part of,” according to Driver – high praise, given some of the movies he’s previously worked on.
The resulting script made it passed bosses at Lucasfilm, including Kathleen Kennedy and Dave Filoni, the company’s chief creative officer. The stumbling block was the studio’s overlords at Disney.
Read more: Star Wars | Lucasfilm is exceptionally good at not making movies
“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.”
The story would have somehow revived Ben Solo, son of Han and formerly the villainous Kylo Ren. The character enjoyed something of a redemption at the end of the sequel trilogy – 2019’s The Rise Of Skywalker. It’s unclear how The Hunt For Ben Solo would have revived Solo, though we’re guessing the Force would have something to do with it.
Whatever the plan was, Driver and Soderbergh’s venture would have been “economical… handmade and character-driven,” and in the vein of The Empire Strikes Back.“
Soderbergh is one of those directors who’s eminently capable of balancing art and commerce, having made crowd-pleasing, big-budget films like the Ocean’s movies, while also directing engrossing low-budget pieces like Unsane and Kimi. It’s borderline alarming that Disney would pull the plug on such a talented director, but it sounds as though that’s exactly what they did in 2024.
“He is, to me, one of my favourite directors of all time,” Driver said of Soderbergh. “He lives his code, lives his ethics, doesn’t compromise.”
There hasn’t been a new Star Wars movie since The Rise Of Skywalker ended the sequel trilogy in 2019. The Mandalorian And Grogu, a TV spin-off directed by Jon Favreau, is out in May 2026.
Of The Hunt For Ben Solo, Soderbergh’s official statement is short and to the point. “I really enjoyed making the movie in my head,” he wrote. “I’m just sorry the fans won’t get to see it.”
