“If it was gonna happen, it would have happened,” director Steven Soderbergh says of his cancelled Star Wars film, The Hunt For Ben Solo. Update: There may be a group of Star Wars fans who remain keen to see Disney/Lucasfilm un-cancel director Steven Soderbergh’s Ben Solo spin-off project, but the filmmaker himself has clearly moved ... The Hunt For Ben Solo | Steven Soderbergh says the Star Wars spin-off is dead
“If it was gonna happen, it would have happened,” director Steven Soderbergh says of his cancelled Star Wars film, The Hunt For Ben Solo.
Update: There may be a group of Star Wars fans who remain keen to see Disney/Lucasfilm un-cancel director Steven Soderbergh’s Ben Solo spin-off project, but the filmmaker himself has clearly moved on from the whole thing.
Talking to The Playlist, Soderbergh said that first talked to Adam Driver – Ben Solo himself – about making the spin-off around three years ago. The story they developed came close to happening, but then execs at Disney nixed the project due to certain plausibility issues.
When asked whether he thought he might return to the cancelled project, Soderbergh said ‘Nope’, adding that he’s since concentrated his efforts elsewhere.
“As soon as it became apparent, OK, not gonna happen, I sat down and started writing [something else],” the filmmaker said. “It’s like, ‘OK, new scenario, let’s get cracking.’ At a certain point, it’s like complaining about the weather. You just gotta keep moving… Look, if it was gonna happen, it would have happened. It’s that simple.”
The Hunt For Ben Solo will, in all likelihood, remain one of filmmaking history’s big what-ifs. A Star Wars film from the maker of Ocean’s 11, Out Of Sight and The Limey? We’d have paid to see that.
Our earlier story follows…
19th February 2026: A Star Wars movie directed by Steven Soderbergh. It’s a notion, we’d wager, that a sizeable number of cinema fans wouldn’t want to pass up. Even if the result was less than a classic, he’s too talented a filmmaker not to come out with something worth watching.
And yet it wasn’t to be: after years of development, heads at Disney axed the project on the eve of production, seemingly because they didn’t but the idea of a character coming back from the dead – even though it would hardly be a first for the Star Wars franchise.
In an interview with BK Mag, Soderbergh has talked about his frustration over that cancelled spin-off, The Hunt For Ben Solo, which would have re-introduced Adam Driver’s titular character.
“It was no surprise she was frustrated,” Soderbergh said, when asked about former Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy’s reaction to the film’s demise. “We were all frustrated. You know, that was two and a half years of free work for me and Adam and [screenwriter] Rebecca Blunt.”
Suggested product
Issue #61 (Horror Special): Magazine + Signed Ben Wheatley F&TT&N: Issue #4 (Reprint)
£14.99
Word of The Hunt For Ben Solo first emerged last October, when Driver brought the subject up in an interview with the Associated Press. In a surprisingly frank set of quotes, the actor expressed his affection for the script, but added, “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.”
Soderbergh now says that he and Driver had talked about going public with the aborted project before that AP interview:
“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.”
Inevitably, Driver and Soderbergh have indeed moved onto other things. Driver has several dramas coming up, including the crime drama Paper Tiger, directed by James Gray. Soderberg has curated a film series for a cinema in Brooklyn, has been busy on several films, including The Christophers, which gets a wide release in the US this April. And he has a fascinating-sounding media project on the horizon called Production 02074 – an app that breaks down the production of the classic Jaws.
All the same, there’s a sense that The Hunt For Ben Solo is Soderbergh’s ‘one that got away’. A subset of Star Wars fans have mounted a campaign to get the film going again, and Soderbergh clearly has an emotional connection to the material. Maybe there’s at least the whisper of a possibility, then, that the spin-off might eventually emerge.
“I’d kind of made the movie in my head,” said Soderbergh, “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.”
