Steven Soderbergh still hasn’t come to terms with the cancellation of his Star Wars film about Ben Solo
“Two and a half years of free work…” The Hunt for Ben Solo was abandoned by Disney and the director still doesn’t quite understand why.
The project will never have seen the light of day and obviously, it still does not happen.
Steven Soderbergh returned without filter on The Hunt for Ben Soloa film Star Wars abandoned by Disney even though its development was well advanced.
The Oscar-winning director had been working for more than two years on this spin-off centered on Kylo Ren, with Adam Driver in the lead and Rebecca Blunt on the screenplay. According to him, the cancellation came suddenly, without discussion of budget or concrete details.
“We were all frustrated,” Soderbergh says today. in an interview with BK Mag. Adam, Rebecca and I worked for free for two and a half years. When Adam told me about talking about the project publicly, I told him: ‘Don’t speculate on the reasons. Just say what happened, because that’s all we know.’ The only explanation we were given from Disney was, ‘We don’t think Ben Solo is alive.’ There you go.”
For Disney, Ben Solo is dead. And therefore there is no question of calling into question the mythology of the saga and the end of episode IX.
Because the film was to serve as a sequel to The Rise of Skywalker and bring back the character loved by fans. Irony of the story: Soderbergh thought the studio’s hesitations would be over practical issues – notably cost – but they never happened.
“I had already made the film in my head. It makes me sad that no one will be able to see it. I thought we would talk about budget, and I had a very good answer. But we haven’t even gotten to that point. It’s insane. We’re all very disappointed…”
The existence of the project was revealed in October 2025 by Driver himself, who explained that he had been developing this return since 2021 after being contacted by Kathleen Kennedy. The actor said he was ready to dive again Star Wars “in a second” with the right director and the right story. This won’t happen.
