Earlier this week, actor Adam Driver made headlines when he revealed that he was all set to reprise the role of Ben Solo, aka Kylo Ren,\u00a0for a new post-The Rise of Skywalker Star Wars movie directed by Steven Soderbergh… until Disney pulled the plug.<\/p>\n
The project was going to focus on “The Hunt for Ben Solo,” who was pretty definitively killed off at the end of The Rise of Skywalker after first rejecting the Dark Side of the Force and helping Rey to defeat the resurrected\/cloned\u00a0Emperor Palpatine.<\/p>\n
“We presented the script to Lucasfilm. They loved the idea,” Driver told The Associated Press. “They totally understood our angle and why we were doing it. It was called The Hunt for Ben Solo and it was really cool. We took it to Bob Iger and Alan Bergman and they said no. They didn\u2019t see how Ben Solo was alive. And that was that.”<\/p>\n
The Playlist<\/a> has now shared some very interesting updates, and it sounds like this project came a lot closer to entering production than we realized. Not only did The Hunt for Ben Solo have a finished script, but the “full stamp of approval from Lucasfilm, including Kathleen Kennedy, and was greenlit internally before being canceled by Disney executives Bob Iger and Alan Bergman.”<\/p>\n Here’s an excerpt from their report.<\/p>\n “Sources close to the project emphasize that this was not a loose concept or early pitch. The film, operating under the codename Quiet Leaves, had a finalized screenplay and was entering early prep and staffing stages. Disney purchased a fully developed treatment and beat sheet, developed by Soderbergh and screenwriter Rebecca Blunt (the pseudonym for Jules Asner, Soderbergh\u2019s wife, who also wrote Logan Lucky]), and hired Scott Z. Burns\u2014who was paid more than any screenwriter in Lucasfilm history\u2014to complete the screenplay. <\/p>\n According to insiders, Kathleen Kennedy, Dave Filoni, and Carrie Beck were directly involved throughout development and were reportedly enthusiastic about the drafts that came in. Kennedy and the Star Wars\u00a0Story Group waited until the project was ‘ready to shoot’\u00a0before they presented it to Disney. When the final script, budget, and proposed start date were delivered to Disney, it marked the first time Lucasfilm had ever presented a fully approved project that did not move forward.”<\/p>\n