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Adam Driver Says ‘The Ship Has Sailed’ on ‘The Hunt for Ben Solo’ and He’s Done Playing Kylo Ren: ‘It’s Over’
Adam Driver says he is done playing Kylo Ren, making a return in a standalone Ben Solo film unlikely. He and director Steven Soderbergh developed a screenplay for the project, but Disney executives Bob Iger and Alan Bergman rejected it because they did not see how Ben Solo could still be alive.
Driver said the team worked on the script for several years with writers Scott Burns and Rebecca Blunt, and described it as “really good”. He said the decision was not his to make and that “the ship has sailed”, while acknowledging the strong fan response, including a banner flown over Disney’s Burbank studio urging the company to save the film. Soderbergh has also said the project would have gone ahead if it were going to happen.
In short
- Adam Driver says he is finished with Star Wars.
- Disney rejected a Ben Solo film screenplay.
- Fans campaigned publicly to save the project.
Steelman: both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
A standalone Ben Solo film could give a compelling character a meaningful story beyond the existing films, and Driver’s account suggests the team spent years developing a script they believed was strong. The fan campaign shows there is an audience for it, so reconsidering the project could serve both viewers and the franchise’s creative ambitions.
The case against
Disney’s executives could reasonably conclude that bringing Ben Solo back would be hard to reconcile with his apparent death and might weaken the story’s established consequences. A film also needs to fit the wider franchise and make commercial sense, and enthusiasm from some fans or the creative team does not by itself settle those questions.
Explained simply
Kylo Ren is the name used by Ben Solo, the son of Princess Leia and Han Solo, in the later Star Wars films. He is drawn to the dark side and becomes an enemy of the Resistance, the group fighting the First Order.
Adam Driver played Kylo Ren across the sequel films, which follow the original Star Wars story. A separate film about Ben Solo would have needed to explain how his story could continue after the events of those films, a question at the centre of Disney’s decision about the proposed project.