Steven Soderbergh on "Insane" & "Frustrating" Rejection of Ben Solo Star Wars Movie

Soderbergh's Frustration Over Ben Solo Movie

• 💡 Director Steven Soderbergh expressed significant frustration and called it "insane" that Disney rejected a Ben Solo movie he and Adam Driver had worked on for two and a half years.
• 📌 The project, titled "The Hunt for Ben Solo," was developed without Disney ever inquiring about the budget or other practical details.
• 🧠 Soderbergh stated that the only reason given for the rejection was that Disney "don't think Ben Solo could be alive."

Unpaid Speculative Development

• 🚀 Soderbergh and Adam Driver, along with writer Rebecca Blunt, undertook the two and a half years of work on the project as a spec script, meaning they were not paid for this development time.
• 🗣️ Soderbergh advised Driver not to speculate on the reasons for rejection, but simply to state what happened.
• 🎬 He felt it was a shame that the movie he envisioned in his head would never be seen by an audience.

Critique of Sequel Trilogy Continuation

• ⚠️ The speaker argues that continuing with movies related to the sequel trilogy is a misguided and "absolute folly."
• 🎯 He believes Disney executives now understand the need to move past the sequel trilogy, similar to how they needed to move past the prequels, due to the strife and division it caused among fans.
• 🚫 Even as a Star Wars defender, the speaker found "The Rise of Skywalker" to be "one of the most putrid things" he had ever seen.

Studio Interference and Future Star Wars

• ✅ The speaker posits that studio interference in this instance was a positive outcome, preventing a potentially damaging project.
• 🌟 He believes that attempting to do another Ray movie or continue with a Ben Solo story would be an "idiotic idea" that would drag down the Star Wars property.
• 🚀 The upcoming "Starfighter" movie is seen as the first real opportunity for Star Wars to move on.

Doubts About Lucasfilm Leadership

• 📉 The situation reinforces the speaker's view that Kathleen Kennedy needed to go, as she seemed blinded to the fan reaction and the need to distance from the sequel trilogy.
• 😟 It is also concerning that Dave Filoni and his co-president of Lucasfilm were reportedly willing to greenlight the Ben Solo movie.
• 💔 The analogy of trying to start a new relationship while an ex is still the roommate is used to illustrate why continuing with sequel trilogy-adjacent stories is doomed to fail.