“Star Wars” fans react to news that Adam Driver and Steven Soderbergh were working on a Ben Solo sequel: “Baiting the fandom”
Adam Driver just revealed he spent two years developing a Star Wars movie about Ben Solo with Steven Soderbergh, and the Internet is going crazy.
It's been six years since the Star Wars sequel trilogy came to an end with The Rise of Skywalker. The movie is the worst-rated live-action film of the franchise, and many fans feel slighted about how the story wrapped up.
One source of contention is the ending given to Driver's Ben Solo, AKA Kylo Ren. The trilogy's main villain eventually turned to the light side, but he died reviving Rey (Daisy Ridley). Turns out, Driver wanted more for the character. He revealed his plans with Soderbergh during a recent interview with AP News.
Adam Driver explains Ben Solo sequel idea
“I always was interested in doing another Star Wars,” Driver shared. “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 added that the movie would take place after The Rise of Skywalker, meaning the son of Han and Leia would have survived.
Soderbergh and Rebecca Blunt pitched the story to Kennedy along with Lucasfilm vice president Cary Beck and Lucasfilm chief creative officer Dave Filoni. The leads were intrigued by the idea, so Scott Z. Burns was brought in to write a script. Driver says it ended up being “one of the coolest [expletive] scripts I had ever been a part of.”
Unfortunately, the higher-ups at Disney shut down the idea.
“We presented the script to Lucasfilm. They loved the idea. They totally understood our angle and why we were doing it,” Driver shared. “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.”
Star Wars fans react to Adam Driver's scrapped Ben Solo movie
Now that fans know Driver had bigger ideas for Ben, they are extremely mad at Iger and Bergman for nixing the idea. Not only have characters been brought back to life in Star Wars before ("somehow, Palpatine returned" is forever a meme), but Kylo Ren is a fan-favorite character.
The anger is real:
As is the hypocrisy:
The memes are strong with this one:
And people are relating to Driver's plight:
Come on, Iger:
Reylos (Rey and Ben shippers) are feeling the loss:
But some people are holding out hope:
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