Why Disney Scrapped A Kylo Ren Star Wars Sequel Directed By An Oscar Winner

No matter which way you look at it, the "Star Wars" franchise has changed dramatically during the last 10 years, shifting from a series primarily based around cinematic events to a primarily streaming-only television venture. While Disney and Lucasfilm are putting "Star Wars" back into the cinema with the upcoming "Starfighter" and "The Mandalorian and Grogu," the former is still an unknown quantity, while the latter feels less like an event and more like a big-screen version of a small-screen show. Unfortunately, this is pretty much what we have to work with, seeing as how the franchise has gone through a shockingly large number of false starts and near-misses to end up at those two future features.

One of those near-misses has just been revealed thanks to Adam Driver's interview with AP News, and it's a doozy. According to the actor, who portrayed Kylo Ren née Ben Solo in the Sequel Trilogy, he and Lucasfilm had been working on a solo film entitled "The Hunt for Ben Solo," and the director they had lined up was none other than Academy Award Winner Steven Soderbergh. Rather than merely an idle pitch or kernel of an idea, it seems that Soderbergh and Driver not only had a completed script in hand but also the approval of Lucasfilm brass, including Kathleen Kennedy. However, when they brought the project to Disney CEO Bob Iger and co-chairman Alan Bergman, the executives turned down the idea outright for no better reason than "they didn't see how Ben Solo was alive," as Driver explained. This is, to put it mildly, a bizarrely pedantic reason to cancel what likely would've been a fascinating, possibly even great new "Star Wars" film, and is a pretty good indication of why the franchise, as it stands, feels so creatively stagnant.

It's easy to understand the sense of apathy many folks have about franchises these days, as it feels like most new installments exist more for the guaranteed paychecks than any creative passion. Yet this was not the case with Driver:

"I always was interested in doing another 'Star Wars.' I had been talking about doing another one since 2021. [...] 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, he took his concept for the film to Soderbergh (whom he worked with in "Logan Lucky"), who then outlined a story with Rebecca Blunt (a pseudonym which likely belongs to Soderbergh's wife, Jules Asner) before handing script duties to collaborator Scott Z. Burns. The result was invigorating, as Driver recalled:

"[It was] one of the coolest (expletive) scripts I had ever been a part of. We presented the script to Lucasfilm. They loved the idea. They totally understood our angle and why we were doing it. We took it to Bob Iger and Alan Bergman and they said no. [...] And that was that."

In a statement given to AP News, Soderbergh echoed Driver's sentiments with a heavy dose of regret:

"I really enjoyed making the movie in my head. I'm just sorry the fans won't get to see it."

It's a shame that the film didn't happen, especially when Soderbergh has been on a hot streak recently, as his films "Kimi," "Presence," and "Black Bag" have been praised for being exceptionally clever genre films. Had the director been let loose on "Star Wars," we may have had the first truly bold entry in the series since "The Last Jedi."

Divorced from the knowledge of the last several years of "Star Wars" discourse, there are countless instances of supposedly dead characters coming back to life within "Star Wars" itself (Ben Kenobi's Force Ghost, for instance). Unfortunately, one of the most controversial examples is of Emperor Palpatine's return in "The Rise of Skywalker." Criticisms of Palpatine's return have mostly revolved around the concept's ham-fisted way of trying to tie all three "Star Wars" trilogies together within a single concluding chapter. Yet, thanks to the way discourse operates on social media — i.e., it becomes reduced to a single meme — it could be interpreted that most fans' issue with the resurrection of the character is that he was resurrected at all.

In other words, it's entirely likely that Iger and Bergman were fearful of another "Somehow, Palpatine returned" meme catching fire if they brought the apparently dead Ben Solo back for a post-"Rise of Skywalker" film. If so, then this is yet another instance of the "Star Wars" franchise meekly catering to the complaints of the loudest and most obnoxious fans, as seen in the case of "The Acolyte" and even "The Rise of Skywalker" itself. This, plus the long list of cancelled projects with big filmmakers, has turned "Star Wars" into a depressingly risk-averse universe, with projects like "Andor" becoming the exception and not the norm. It's ironic, considering that George Lucas' original 1977 film was one of the biggest risks in cinema history. Though it's understandable why company owners wouldn't want to rock any boats, those in charge of the galaxy far, far away would do well to be less concerned with pleasing some of the people all of the time.