For a franchise constructed on legacy, redemption, and surprising returns, it’s becoming that probably the most intriguing unrealized Star Wars initiatives refuses to vanish quietly. The Hunt for Ben Solo, a proposed sequel centered on Kylo Ren after Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, might have been rejected as soon as, however new feedback and behind the scenes particulars counsel the concept is much from buried.
And in line with Adam Driver, it was probably the most thrilling scripts he had ever learn.
Adam Driver’s Secret Sequel Plan
Following the conclusion of the Skywalker Saga, Driver quietly started creating a continuation of Ben Solo’s story. Teaming with director Steven Soderbergh and author Scott Z. Burns, the pitch reportedly explored how Ben may need survived and what redemption would really seem like past a remaining act sacrifice.
Driver has since spoken brazenly about his ardour for the challenge.
“It was one of many coolest scripts I’ve ever been concerned with,” Driver stated when discussing the shelved movie. “It wasn’t about undoing something. It was about consequence. It requested what redemption actually prices.”
That thematic focus is what reportedly satisfied key creatives at Lucasfilm to assist the concept. The story was not meant to be a easy resurrection twist. As an alternative, it could have leaned into the non secular mythology of Star Wars and the concept the Drive doesn’t function inside regular guidelines of life and demise.
Driver additionally famous that the movie was deeply character pushed. “Ben was by no means meant to be easy,” he defined. “There was all the time extra there. We needed to discover that in a method that felt earned.”
Adam Driver, as Kylo Ren The Drive Awakens [credit: Disney Pictures]
Why Disney Mentioned No
Regardless of inventive enthusiasm, the pitch finally stalled on the govt degree. When introduced to management at Disney, together with CEO Bob Iger and co chairman Alan Bergman, issues reportedly centered on the plausibility of Ben Solo surviving his obvious demise.
From a company standpoint, the Skywalker Saga had concluded. Reopening it carried monetary and narrative danger. Driver has acknowledged that hesitation with out bitterness.
“I perceive why folks had been cautious,” he stated. “However Star Wars has all the time been about taking large swings.”
He isn’t fallacious. The franchise has revived characters earlier than, typically in way more controversial methods. For a lot of followers, Ben Solo’s survival would have felt thematically aligned with the saga’s lengthy historical past of redemption arcs and Drive mysticism.
Why The Story Nonetheless Has Life
Extra just lately, feedback from Kathleen Kennedy have added gasoline to hypothesis that beforehand shelved concepts are usually not completely off the desk. Kennedy has emphasised that Lucasfilm continues to revisit ideas relying on timing and artistic path.
That issues. The Star Wars franchise is at the moment in a interval of recalibration, with new movies and collection reshaping its future. In that context, a personality pushed story about Ben Solo looking for atonement may match naturally right into a broader thematic revival.
Driver himself has not closed the door.
“I don’t assume that story is completed,” he stated. “Whether or not it’s this model or one thing else, I feel there’s nonetheless one thing highly effective there.”
For now, The Hunt for Ben Solo stays an interesting what if. However in a galaxy the place nobody is ever really gone, the concept of Ben Solo returning yet another time feels much less like fantasy and extra like unfinished enterprise.
