Ever since Disney took charge of Star Wars, fans have learned not to get too excited about upcoming movies, shows, and spinoffs, since even announced projects can fall apart at any time. In a recent book, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy even revealed that she was pressured to announce projects before they were ready, meaning any challenges that would normally be handled behind the scenes were suddenly playing out in public.
We recently learned about yet another Star Wars project that got very close to production despite not even being formally announced. Now, its collapse looks more frustrating than every other failed project before it.
In a recent AP interview, Adam Driver revealed that he was developing a Kylo Ren sequel movie called The Hunt for Ben Solo with director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns (Contagion, The Bourne Ultimatum). Driver called it “one of the coolest (expletive) scripts I had ever been a part of.” While the project was pitched to the powers that be at Lucasfilm, it was Disney that wasn’t on board, supposedly because executives didn’t care for Kylo/Ben coming back to life after The Rise of Skywalker.
Now, new details reveal just how close The Hunt for Ben Solo came to fruition. The Playlist claims it had a fully finished screenplay under the codename Quiet Leaves — a script that earned the highest screenwriter pay in Lucasfilm history — and was already moving into early pre-production work like staffing and scheduling.
Playlist claimed it was the first time a Lucasfilm project had gone this far before being nixed, and Soderbergh confirmed this on Bluesky. “In the aftermath of the situation, I asked Kathy Kennedy if LFL had ever turned in a finished movie script for greenlight to Disney and had it rejected,” he wrote. “She said no, this was a first.”
Ever since word of this project leaked, fans have been trying to prove there’s demand for it with everything from billboards in New York to a plane trailing a banner over Disney Studios. It’s also been speculated that Driver revealed the project in a last-ditch effort to revive it, much like Ryan Reynolds leaking footage of his own Deadpool movie, but Playlist claims this is false, and the movie is considered “dead” at Lucasfilm.
Such erratic decision-making can look frustrating to outsiders, but while The Hunt for Ben Solo may have ended before it began, the sequel-to-the-sequels era continues with an upcoming Rey-focused follow-up still in development. If it does well, maybe another Kylo project will emerge and sneak across the finish line.
