Director Steven Soderbergh has a disappointing update for “Star Wars” fans hoping to see Adam Driver reprise his role as Ben Solo in a future movie. The villainous Kylo Ren, who first appeared in 2015’s “The Force Awakens,” was later redeemed in 2019’s “The Rise of Skywalker,” which was also the last “Star Wars” film released in theaters. Although Ben Solo seemingly passed away at the end of the sequel trilogy, Driver and Soderbergh had an idea to continue Ben’s story. Unfortunately, top Disney execs did not, leading to the film’s cancellation. Despite a significant fan campaign to get the movie back on track, especially with changes in both Lucasfilm and Disney’s leadership, Soderbergh revealed that the movie is “done” and that he has moved on to other projects.. ZUMAPRESS.com / MEGA. In January, Kathleen Kennedy stepped down as President of Lucasfilm and was replaced by Dave Filoni and Lynwen Brennan. Two months later, Josh D’Amaro officially succeeded Bob Iger as Disney CEO. With so much change in leadership, “Star Wars” fans were hopeful that the Ben Solo film, tentatively dubbed “The Hunt for Ben Solo,” would finally come to fruition.. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case. While promoting his upcoming film “The Christophers,” director Steven Soderbergh told The Playlist that the film is dead, saying, “Look, if it was gonna happen, it would have happened.”. “It’s that simple,” he added, giving a clear “Nope” when asked if he would ever return to the project.. MEGA. Soderbergh was also asked about a fan rumor suggesting that Tony Gilroy’s highly successful Disney+ series “Andor” sparked the idea of bringing Ben Solo back to life. Soderbergh shot that idea down, saying that conversations with Driver had actually started before the “Andor” premiere.. “Well, I don’t want to say [it had no influence], because then it makes it seem like, you know, ‘I watched ‘Andor,’ and it had absolutely no impact on me,’ which is not true, it was great,” he explained. “But this was [all] before ‘Andor’ aired. Adam and I started talking, and this would have been almost three years ago now.”. ZUMAPRESS.com / MEGA. Soderbergh still valued the project as a valuable creative exercise, even if it is no longer moving forward.. “I don’t regret one minute of the time we spent working on that,” he said. “I felt the work was good. It’s just good for you to be in that room and working on it. It’s like CrossFit—it’s good for you. It’ll have a residual effect that will be unexpected at some point.”. Instead of lingering on regrets, it seems Soderbergh is taking a page out of Kylo Ren’s book and is ready to “let the past die” and move on to other projects.. “As soon as it became apparent, OK, not gonna happen, I sat down and started writing [something else],” Soderbergh said. “It’s like, ‘OK, new scenario, let’s get cracking.’ At a certai
