More failed Star Wars projects are coming out of the woodwork this week. Following Adam Driver’s revelation that there was a script titled The Hunt for Ben Solo set after The Rise of Skywalker that was ultimately turned down by Disney, reporter Jeff Sneider broke the news via his newsletter that David Fincher, the iconic director behind Seven, The Social Network, and Fight Club, was also working not that long ago on a movie for Lucasfilm.
Sneider didn’t reveal many details, other than the story would have been set after the events of The Rise of Skywalker and was focused on a character from that movie, though we don’t know which one. The project would have been his idea, but negotiations fell through as the director asked for final cut, something that Lucasfilm was not willing to concede. It’s unclear how far along the development process the movie was, though. For starters, Fincher is not a writer, so someone else would have had to pen the script.
Fincher is currently working on a follow-up to Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood for Netflix, where the filmmaker has had an overall deal for a long time. His relation to Star Wars is also not unknown. He worked as a crew member on Return of the Jedi back in the day, which was one of his first experiences on a movie, and he was also approached to direct Episode VII in the early days of development, shortly after Disney bought Lucasfilm. Moreover, Kathleen Kennedy produced his movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, so there’s already a built-in relationship with the head of the studio. That movie was nominated for Best Picture, which could have been Kennedy’s first Oscar.
Circling back to Adam Driver, Sneider also asked his source about the timing of the Hunt for Ben Solo reveal, and whether he could be “setting the stage for his return”. He wrote: “I was assured that there are no plans for him to return to the Star Wars franchise, especially with Kennedy expected to step down from her post early next year.” This story has taken over Star Wars Twitter this week, with a good portion of the fanbase upset over the decision. It has even prompted a Change.org petition (of course), and even incentivized the social media managers at Lucasfilm to post the fight between Rey and Ben Solo vs. Palpatine on YouTube, to capitalize on the sudden interest.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.