Six years after he last appeared as Kylo Ren in The Rise of Skywalker (2019), Adam Driver revealed to The Associated Press previously unknown details about the Steven Soderbergh-directed spinoff, which Disney axed after years of development.
Driver “Always” Wanted to Make Another Star Wars
“I always was interested in doing another Star Wars,” Driver told the outlet. “I had been talking about doing another one since 2021. Kathleen (Kennedy) had reached out. 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.”
Driver then turned to Soderbergh, the journeyman filmmaker behind sex, lies, and videotape (1989), Ocean’s 11 (2001), Presence, and Black Bag (both 2025). The Girls alum revealed that he and Soderbergh spent years developing a script which repaired some of the issues Driver had with the initial reboot trilogy. Namely, after signing on to the role of Kylo Ren, aka Ben Solo, with the belief that he would get to subvert Darth Vader’s origin story, Driver was disappointed that the Rise of Skywalker played Vader’s entry into the universe more or less exactly as the previous installments had.
He Worked With Soderbergh for Years on a Script
Driver explained that Soderbergh worked with writer Rebecca Blunt to craft an outline for the screenplay, which they then pitched to Soderbergh Kennedy, Lucasfilm vice president Cary Beck, and Lucasfilm chief creative officer Dave Filoni. The Lucasfilm braintrust was interested, and Soderbergh subsequently enlisted his frequent collaborator Scott Z. Burns, with whom the filmmaker has collaborated on several projects including The Informant (2009), Contagion (2011), and The Laundromat (2019).
“One of the Coolest Scripts”
But despite Driver’s feeling that Soderbergh and Burns’ screenplay was “one of the coolest scripts I had ever been a part of,” Disney ultimately killed the project. “We presented the script to Lucasfilm,” he explained. “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. They didn’t see how Ben Solo was alive. And that was that. It was called ‘The Hunt for Ben Solo’ and it was really cool,” Driver added. “But it is no more, so I can finally talk about it.”In a statement to the AP, Soderbergh said, “I really enjoyed making the movie in my head. I’m just sorry the fans won’t get to see it.”
