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In a galaxy far, far away, a movie about the redemption of Kylo Ren by an Oscar-winning author is about to be shown.
Adam Driver has revealed that he and Traffic director Steven Soderbergh, who directed Driver in Ocean’s Eleven and Logan Lucky, spent two years developing a Star Wars movie titled The Hunt for Ben Solo, but only Disney passed. The project follows Ben Solo/Kylo Ren after The Rise of Skywalker, and Driver described a gritty, character-first approach.
Character-driven sequels are mostly
“I’ve always wanted to do Star Wars again,” Driver told The Associated Press. “We’ve been talking about doing the next one since 2021. Kathleen[Kennedy]contacted me. I always said, ‘If you have a great director and a great story, it’s going to happen.'” I loved that character and loved playing him. ”
Soderbergh roughly finalized the story with Logan Lucky screenwriter Rebecca Brandt. Scott Z. Burns (The Bourne Ultimatum, Contagion) was later brought on board to write the screenplay. Driver called the film “homemade and character-driven” and pointed to 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back as its tonal touchstone, the “standard” for what a Star Wars movie should be.
Lucasfilm “loved the idea”, Disney didn’t
According to the driver, the pitch landed hard on Lucasfilm. “We submitted the script to Lucasfilm and they loved the idea. They completely understood our angle and why we were doing it,” he said.
This proposal stalled at Disney, where the idea of bringing back a character who died at the end of The Rise of Skywalker, sacrificing himself to save Rey, stalled. “I took it to Bob Iger and Alan Bergman and they said no. They didn’t see how Ben Solo lived. That was it,” Driver recalled.
A view of Soderbergh — and the door closed.
Soderbergh, the Oscar-winning director of “Traffic” and frequent co-star of “Driver,” told The Associated Press in a tongue-in-cheek statement: “I really enjoyed making the movie in my head. I’m disappointed that the fans won’t get to see it.” Driver echoed that sentiment, saying that the idea was “really cool,” but that with the project defunct, “we can finally talk about it because it’s gone.”
Driver created Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens, returned in The Last Jedi, and concluded the trilogy with The Rise of Skywalker. This unproduced chapter, Soderbergh’s redemption story, now joins a long list of Star Wars projects that almost did.
Left to right: Adam Driver, Steven Soderbergh, and Daniel Craig on the set of “Logan Lucky” | Roadshow Movie
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