By the time Lucasfilm brought the proposed The Hunt for Ben Solo movie to Disney for approval, they already had:
- an Academy Award-winning director signed on to direct, in Steven Soderbergh
- an Academy Award-nominated actor agreeing to return to his fan favorite Star Wars role, in Adam Driver
- a completed screenplay that is the most Lucasfilm had paid for one, written by Scott Z. Burns
- the support of then-Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy, new Lucasfilm President Dave Filoni, and Executive VP of Live-Action Production and Development Carrie Beck
- a story continuing the tale of Ben Solo, the son of Leia Organa and Han Solo, a sort-of continuation of the story of the Skywalkers
Despite all of this, Disney said no. But they didn’t say no because of money, because they never even asked how much it would cost. Instead, Disney executive Alan Bergman and then-CEO Bob Iger shot down the idea because they just didn’t see how Ben Solo would be alive.
Steven Soderbergh talked about the disappointment of this rejection in a recent interview with BK Mag. The interviewer brought up Kathleen Kennedy’s exit interview, about how disappointed she was that this film was shot down. He replied:
No, it was no surprise that she was frustrated. We were all frustrated. You know, that was two and a half years of free work for me and Adam and Rebecca Blunt. When Adam and I discussed him talking about it publicly, I said, “Look, do not editorialize or speculate about the why. Just say what happened, because all we know is what happened.” The stated reason was “We don’t think Ben Solo could be alive.” And that was all we were told. And so there’s nothing to do about it, you know, except move on.”
And as I posted, I’d kind of made the movie in my head, and just felt bad that nobody else was going to get to see it. I thought the conversation was strictly going to be a practical one—where they go, what is this going to cost? And I had a really good answer for that. But it never even got to that point. It’s insane. We’re all very disappointed.
I’ve been on record as fully agreeing that this decision was insane. Personally, I think the idea for the movie sounds really exciting and comes with lots of potential, and it would get me more excited than many of the projects being tossed around currently. But that’s not even the main reason why it’s insane. It’s insane because this is Disney directly meddling in the work that Lucasfilm is doing, killing a story that had the full support of Lucasfilm and was already quite far along in the planning, just because these Disney executives lacked creativity. It will be a disastrous thing if Disney continues to get involved in decisions like this, which is why it might be good that Iger is on his way out and Bergman was passed over for the CEO job.
And for the decision to happen just because they didn’t know how Ben Solo could still be alive, and not even because they were talking about how much money it would take to make it? That’s just insulting to everyone who spent so much time – years, it turns out – to make this happen.
It’s clear that everyone involved – from Kennedy to Driver to Soderbergh – are quite upset that this happened, and that’s completely understandable. I’m still holding out hope that, perhaps, this movie could be revived once new leadership takes over, but I’m not holding my breath. Instead, all we can really hope for is that Disney won’t make decisions like this a pattern. That might be a far-fetched hope, but it also might be the only way that Star Wars can thrive in the future.
Star Wars Thoughts 