Director Steven Soderbergh opened up about the fate of his unmade “Star Wars” movie that was set to focus on Ben Solo titled “The Hunt for Ben Solo,” saying Disney’s decision to scrap the film was disappointing.
“We were all frustrated,” Soderbergh said in a Tuesday interview with BK Magazine, noting that former Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy was also saddened by the studio’s choice to axe the film.
He went on to explain that he, Adam Driver, who plays Ben Solo, and Rebecca Blunt, who was set to develop a treatment and outline for the film, had invested nearly three years crafting the project all for it to go down the drain.
“That was two and a half years of free work for me and Adam and Rebecca Blunt,” Soderbergh explained. “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 [from Disney] 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.”
Soderbergh said he initially thought Disney would at least entertain how much the movie would cost to make, but instead conversations around it eventually stopped.
“I’d kind of made the movie in my head, and just felt bad that nobody else was going to get to see it,” Soderbergh said. “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.”
Back in October 2025, Soderbergh revealed the Ben Solo “Star Wars” movie was the first time Disney rejected a completed script for the franchise.
“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,” Soderbergh said. “She said no, this was a first.”
Driver spilled the beans on the canned project in October 2025 as well while talking to the Associated Press. The film was set to take place after the events of 2019’s “The Rise of Skywalker” and although it seemed to have some initial steam Disney eventually gave it the boot.
“We presented the script to Lucasfilm. They loved the idea. They totally understood our angle and why we were doing it,” Driver said at the time. “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.”
