ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - Why Did Disney Cancel Star Wars: The Hunt for Ben Solo!?

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

ScreenCrush The Podcast tackles all the movie and TV hot topics, offering reviews and analysis of Marvel, Star Wars, and everything you care about right now. Hosted by Ryan Arey, and featuring a panel of industry professionals.

Can you guys believe that we almost got a new Ben Solo movie? Adam Driver worked with the Steven Sodenberg to craft a Ben Solo movie that took place after his death and rise of Skywalker. So I'm going to be joined by a couple of friends and we're going to talk about the movie that we almost got and tell you what we think it could have been about. Welcome back Screen Crush. I'm Ryan Airy. To be honest, I'm feeling just a little bit cheated. So here's what we know. Adam Driver just told the Associated Press, quote, I was always interested in doing another Star Wars. 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. Now, then Adam Driver went to Steven Sodenberg, who's like one of the filmmakers of our generation.

He's the genius who gave us traffic, Contagion, Aaron Brockovich, the Oceans movies, basically one great movie a year for your entire lifetime. And then the two of them worked on a screenplay with Scott Z. Burns, who wrote Contagent in the Born Ultimatum. Driver said he loved the screenplay and that it was called The Hunt for Ben Solo. Sodenberg also said in a statement to AP that, quote, I really enjoyed making the movie in my head. I'm just sorry the fans won't get to see it. But what happened?

So, they pitched the movie to Lucasfilm. Lucasfilm loved it, but then, Driver says, we took it to Bob Eiger and Alan Bergman, and they said no. They didn't see how Ben Solo was alive, and that was that, which, executives. It's not up to you to decide how Ben Solo was alive. That is up to the writers and filmmakers, the creative people you hire to actually make the movies for you. You know, movies, the things that make you money. So this isn't the first time that Adam

Driver had talked about returning to Ben Solo. Like he told the Rich Eisen Show in 2024, I had an overall arc in mind that J.J. Abrams wanted to do, which, you know, then changed. His idea was that Kylo's journey was almost the opposite of Vader, where Vader starts the most confident and the most committed to the dark side, and by the last movie, he's the most vulnerable and weak. He wanted to do the opposite. So in context, you've got to think, this is massive Star Wars news. Lucas film has been struggling to get a new Star Wars movie made for years. They have been through several drafts of screenplays about Ray that would take place after the rise of Skywalker. And there have been numerous other trilogies and films that have been announced and canceled and considered over the years.

Filmmakers like Tycho Wittiti, Damon Lindelof, Dave and Dan, who did Game of Thrones, Ryan Johnson. I mean, the list goes on. Everybody got a trilogy and a movie before it was taken away, and now we can add Stephen Sodenberg to the list of filmmakers who did not get their chance to make a Star War. But this is especially baffling. Driver is a huge star, and I think he put on the best performance of any Star Wars actor ever. Like, I personally walked away from the rise of Skywalker, really wanting to see more of Ben Solo. Driver, like after Kylo's conversion, he throws the thing in the water and stuff,

Adam Driver fell into that role so easily. He turned Kylo Ren into an actual charming, heroic, fun figure. So imagine a whole movie or trilogy where we get to see that character. That's what the sequel trilogy was missing. And then we get a movie called The Hunt for Ben Solo. What would that have been about? Could it have been about Ben searching for himself? Or was it the remnants of the First Order looking for the leader who betrayed them? And then there's this bigger question.

How would that set up the post-rise of Skywalker Galaxy? Because I think this is the real reason why Lucasfilm has been so hesitant about new movies and maybe why they passed on this movie. They rushed into the Force Awakens, they didn't do the right amount of world building, and that meant that they did not get a universe they could properly build off of. For instance, Last Jedi starts a few seconds after Force Awakens ends, which means that they could not make any movies or TV shows or spinoffs that took place between the films. I think Lucasfilm now has learned from that mistake,

and they want to lay down a foundation for the next decade of movies and TV shows and comics. So they're being very careful about how they build this new universe. And you never know, we could still see the return of Ben Solo in the Ray trilogy. I mean, this is a franchise where, as Luke Skywalker said, No one's ever really gone. I've been faded away at the end of the movie, but he's not a force ghost at the end of the film. So it's possible that instead of fading into the force, he could have been transported across the galaxy. I mean, think about it. This movie introduces the concept of using the force to teleport objects,

so why not people? Hell, maybe it turns out Ben Solo at the end was a projection, like what Luke Skywalker did in The Last Jedi. All right, so now I'm joined here by two of my all-time favorite people. We have the guy who's trapped in the TV and doesn't know it, so please don't tell him Colton Ogburn, and one of my all-time favorite Star Wars people, the co-host of the Around the Galaxy, podcast, the absolute man himself, Pete Fletzer, and who is the author of the brand new book, Who Owns the Myth? I've read the first few chapters. You guys got to pick it up. You won't be disappointed. It's pretty great. Pete, did I get it right that time? That's my second attempt. I screwed up every single detail about your bio. Did I get everything? Okay, so the shit you people don't get to see that we delete from this, right? And it's all because the editors,

because the editors, let's be honest. They're actually really awesome, funny, cool and talented people. Let's dive into this. First of all, I want to know. You guys have heard all. the same facts that I have. It's undisputed. It's on the Associated Press, the most reliable news outlet around. This is not a leaker. Pete, what are your thoughts on this potential Ben Solo movie? And were we robbed? You know, I, listen, I, one of my least favorite phrases in social media is this is what they took from us and we were robbed. And we were robbed. This has to have been, as you were saying, since it's been picked up by very legitimate outlets. It's not just some crazy leak or some rumor from a Raylo that wanted to see this.

This is something that has actually been, you know, was going to happen. And it was going to bet Adam Driver coming back as Kylo Ren, who was ever since Darth Mall, I feel like there was always a wasted villain in every Star Wars. And I don't know that he was completely wasted, but he certainly wasn't developed. And this would have been amazing. Adam Driver's a great actor. I have so many things to say. I'm sorry.

I'll slow down. It's okay. Like I said, I agree. I think he put on the best performance. Like Star Wars movies are not renowned for their acting. Yeah. And he and Daisy Ridley were putting on clinics, baby. Yeah. Every one of those movies. He was fantastic.

And I just can't get over Steven Sodenberg. That's where I'm like, you've got to be shitting me. Steven Soberg comes to your house. It's like in Ghostbusters, when someone asks if you're a god, you say yes. If Steven Sodenberg says, I want to make a movie about some, yeah, probably make you make some money. You want some money for it? Take the money. Oh, and Adam Dedenberg.

ever wants to be in it too. Oh, yeah, that's even better. Oh, we already have a popular character. I'm sure there's reasons for this, because we do hear about this kind of thing all the time, Colton, where, like, well, you're like, oh, did you know that they were going to make, like, that John Landis was going to make Jaws 3 and stuff like that that maybe wouldn't be a good idea in hindsight. But what do you think, buddy?

Where are we at on this? Well, bah. Well, you have a good point that there's way more projects that don't get made that definitely should not have been made. but Lucasfilm seems to have this track record of, we just hear about this awesome stuff that just does never happen. It never happens.

And it's really frustrating. I'm really glad that they're continuing with Daisy Ridley as Ray, and I just can't believe that they're not going to do the same with Adam Driver. I don't know how you don't realize that you have such a beloved name, such a talented actor, and he's there willing to do it. And you don't put that into production? I don't get it. I don't get it whatsoever.

And I have a question. I never really got clarity on this. Was the pitch for it to be, was it a continuation? Yeah, after episode nine called the Hunt for Ben Solo. So would he have been a force ghost or would he have not died? Well, we just don't know.

Adam didn't send me the script yet. I'm looking forward to reading it. I mean, it's got to get leaked, right? I think probably in that pitch, he doesn't die in Rise of Skywalker, and we get to see Ben Solo be like this vigilante, like, gray Jedi, kind of like a bit of a scoundrel, not quite a scoundrel, but like his dad, in the Millennium Falcon, maybe it's him and Chewy, and they're going and like, you know, fighting space pirates and stuff.

And because he can't run the Jedi Order with Ray. He's too impure. It's like for the same reason, uh, Bucky can ever be Captain America. But they totally could have told some really cool stories with Ben Solo. See, I don't know, though, about him not being able to run it with Ray. The reason I said no initially is because I thought he's too tied to the old order and the old way. I just don't think narratively it's that interesting. I do think that in the High Republic books go into this, there's a Jedi who basically uses the taps into the dark side and feels that and then works to overcome it.

Works with other jet. It's honest as I use the dark side and they work with them. It's kind of like by Yoda's time, it got more dogmatic once you start down the dark path. It's like don't do drugs, you know, like stay away from those forever. I think he could have run it. I don't think it's a very interesting story if we basically pick up 10 years later and the two of them are hand in hand making the Jedi. I mean, I think what about it.

Imagine if it was Kylo and Dave and Ray sort of at odds about what the Jedi should be as sort of an underlying tone. And, you know, I think neither one of them would want to follow the old Jedi dogma, right? because that's been proven to fail. But what if they had different thoughts on it? And that caused some sort of friction between doing it. That's not enough to run an entire story, but it could be a nice sort of underlying character development. I like the idea of Ben serving, like, if we do want to have him, like, interacting with Ray Still and, like, the new pupils, maybe him be kind of like what Wolverine is to, like, Xavier's school.

Like, he's kind of the more, you know, he's killed a lot of people. He's seen a lot. He's done a lot of stuff. He may not be in the best position to be teaching young Jedi, like, you know, the moral compass they should have and whatnot. But then, like, he becomes, like, this reluctant hero. I loved his hero's journey in the sequel trilogy. And they really could have picked up on that with, like, a 10-11 and 12 or a Ben Solo movie. It would have been cool.

Trust him with our children. We cannot. We cannot. Oh, that was good. Right. That was good. Well, thanks, man. I worked really hard at it.

I think the exciting thing about this was the same thing that's exciting about episode 7 initially was we don't know. There are a million possibilities that you could go through. I mean, if you look at how much the sequel trilogy ended up taking influence from the expanded universe novels. I don't know if you guys have read, I know you guys have, but I know there's people watching have read them. But basically, Han and Leah have twins, one turns evil. They basically turn Kylo Ren into Jason Solo. And I was always disappointed in that. Now you get this point where it's like, well, shit.

Where did he go? Did he fade away? Did he go to the world between worlds and come back? You know, he wasn't a forest ghost at the end, like I said earlier. He completely could have transported himself. We see that in these movies now. Hell, they could have written it in that he was in astral form. It's called the hunt for Ben Solo. Maybe he doesn't remember who he was. Maybe going back and forth kind of fragmented and did cheese whiz on his brain, like in Quantum Leap.

There's just a million possibilities. And you have this concept where we don't know what's going to happen. Now, we also don't know what's going to happen in season two in the book of Boba Fett and all the shit that's attached to the original trilogy. But I think I'm with you guys and I really want to see them expand past original trilogy era and just do something different. And that's what I've, that's why I feel cheated about this. Pete, what do you think? Are there any other exciting places like or anything I've mentioned? Do you think would have been like, yes, that's where they should have taken this? I think the thing that's most shocking to me is that Bob Eiger's response was, we don't know how he would be alive at this point, which is. is just probably the worst possible excuse to not have this movie happen. And I also think that that's probably one of the biggest challenges with the story group as a concept. Right now they are so tied to whatever happened in the movies. But listen, I think, and actually not to, you know, talk about my book too much, but one of the things I talk about is... Hey, bring it up, baby.

Yes. We never plug things on screen crush. You know, especially our merch. Right. Your merch. Buy merch from screen crush. Absolutely. One of the things that I think DC has done really well,

and I'm a little bit worried about where the DC universe is going to go right now, because they are being very concerned about Canada, is we've gotten so many Joker stories and so many Batman stories. And yeah, they're similar, and they just exist in slightly different worlds, but they're the same archetypes. There's no reason why this couldn't extend that or not get so hung up on the rules that are in place from the story group.

They often ignore comic books. They have definitely ignored some of the animation. So make it work. And to me, it's just very strange that the excuse was that they didn't know how he would be a lot. In the Star Wars movie, where Darth Mall has come back. Yes, thank you. No one's ever really gone. Yeah, we're like monks in space trained to move objects with their mind.

I mean, the lack of imagination. If that's, I mean, I don't know if that was the exact phrasing from Bob. but it does show a lack of imagination. I have such a hard time. Look, I'm no big huge Bob Iger fan, but I think he's a far better CEO than paycheck was. And I think that he's always acted as the type of CEO who lets his creatives do their thing.

I can't imagine him even troubling himself with how he'd be alive. There's that great story. You brought up Darth Malpie, where Lucas himself was like, yeah, we're going to have Mall come back. And Flonny was like, how? And he's like, you'll figure it out. Of course you can figure it out. It's Star Wars, it's Space Wizards, it's Force ghosts, and people literally in Rise of Skywalker,

they show that you can bring people back to life. Ryan, you mentioned that he could have teleported himself somewhere. There's so many possible. We could probably come up with 100 possibilities right now for how they could have done it. So that is just crazy that that was his response. And frankly, this is a, and maybe they're wearing. of the Palpatine thing. You know, it's a franchise who brought back a character with one sentence and then in a video game. You know, maybe they didn't want to have that happen again. Maybe they

were looking forward, but he could see how Palpatine could come back, but not Kyler. Right. Well, but that's what I, that was my point earlier, right? So Bob Beiger wasn't in charge during all that. That's when he was on this, let's call it a few years sabbatical. I do think that they're more conscious about where things will fit in to a framework that they're building. You know, like I can't, Like, I have to believe that Damon Lindeloff had a great Ray pitch. I have to believe... I don't think Tycho Wattiti ever wrote a single word for Star Wars, but there's other people, too,

who probably had great concepts, but now they're going, well, you know, we need video games, we need all this other stuff, which is pretty cynical, but frankly, the sequel trilogy didn't set up anything, except for prequels to explain how the f*** we got the empire to return at the start of that. I mean, Pete, you're like me.

You consume all Star Wars media. Have there been, like, the... like the Captain Fasma novel and some tie-ins, like anything significant. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of really great places where it could all go. And I think you make a great point. I think this is one of the challenges of corporate ownership of the Star Wars myth, right, is that it is no, it went from being George Lucas's story to something that needs brand management, that needs to figure out profit and loss statements.

And it is, you know, I love, Pablo, Padagos is a wonderful human being and a very smart Star Wars guy. Dave Faloni is a super smart Star Wars guy. But as much good as the story group may have done to sort of clear out the clutter that was there before, now it's put up such narrow guardrails that, yeah, they probably, the reason may have been as simple as we have five books coming out, two video games and a comic book series that shows what happens. And it's already done. And this movie will screw up all that. I think they need to be comfortable with, you know, living in sort of parallel universes sometimes or at least multiple stories or to understand that your comic book lines are going to be different

than your movies. Again, Marvel is a great example. There's so many variations in the characters. They're still the same character. You know who it is. But at the same time, your big screen is for the bigger audience, right? And look, I've been honest and said that I have not read many comics at all because that's just not my my area of Star Wars interest.

But there's so many things that have happened there. Some good ones, though. Oh, I know. The Vader comic is fantastic. And of course, the Dr. Afra stuff is amazing. But all that said, there's so much other things that have happened. Like, there's stories between the movies that

if they're letting that stop them from making great films, that's a big problem. And that's going to stifle the opportunity to grow. As Heather Antos likes to say, everything's canon until it's not. And there are levels to canon. So hopefully that's not, but it's go ahead. Colton. Well, and I adore Heather and everything Heather does and what they do with those books over there. But I think it is idiotic for Lucasfilm to allow for such crucial

stories that should be told on the big screen for a massive audience to not be made because they're shoehorning it into like a comic or a book that I'm sorry. No one is reading. If you put it on a graph compared to the amount of people that watch the movie. It doesn't even come up on the chart. And to be clear, I don't actually think that they were like, well, actually, there's this Timothy Zon novel coming out so we can't do this movie. I don't think it goes to that extreme. I do think they are taking a step back, which is smart and looking at the whole tapestry

and going, well, you brought up a good point. If Ben is around, well, what happens with the Jedi Order? So maybe their plan is like, really, they want Ray to do this. And if Ben is around, maybe they can't do that. hell maybe Kathleen Kennedy didn't think it was that great of an idea but she thought it was worth pass it on to Bob. We don't really know we're just going off like one or two accounts from Adam and Steve. That's what I call them when we hang out Adam and Steve.

Yeah, I get it. Because we're buddies and stuff. Pete, real quick, I want to know what your book is about. Can you tell us like what kind of, is it a Star War? Is it canon? It's a nonfiction book actually. It's sort of part memoir, part mythological study and part pop culture study. at why Star Wars means so much to people that we fight about it and disagree about it so much

and what the different changes are. And I take it all the way back from, you know, the original trilogy to the special editions, to the impact of the sequels and the Disney buyout. And, you know, I try to give some grace to all sides of the argument and just to understand where it's at. So it was a lot of fun to write. And if people want to check it out, I'd love for them to see it. Let me just tell you guys, if you, you know, we talk about Star Wars on the show, but we also talk about Star Wars, like the myth, the whole thing that we all take so personally and why we're always at each other's throats. Pete's this guy who's got this rare attachment to it that goes through generations, and I swear he's not paying me to say this, but he's seen it all. Like, he's seen the whole scope of this from childhood to now and offer some really great insights about not just Star Wars and why it's great, but why we think it's.

It's great. Why we love it. That's what I love most about. I haven't read the whole thing because you haven't sent me a copy yet. But the preview pages you sent, that's what I really thought. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to be like, well, I've read the whole thing. Well, you can pre-order it at who owns the myth.com. And it comes out on Amazon on November 11th. And like I said, I'm so pumped to get to finish reading it. And since it's not canon, we can do the movie. That's right. Yes. Bob Eiger says he fully approves the movie. All right. So guys, I want to have to leave it there. But thank you both so much for Sean. timing in on this, I'm going to go crawl into a hole and think about what could have been. So remember, subscribe to everything we have. Hit the bell for alerts. Pete's got a podcast. We're going to link that below. Colton, we're linking him. We're all linked. We're all linked below. If you want, with a real action, happens in the links below. For Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie.