Adam Driver wants to thank fans for supporting “The Hunt for Ben Solo,” but the “Star Wars” actor thinks his days as Kylo Ren are over.
“It’s over,” Driver said on Wednesday. “No more ‘Star Wars.’ We tried.”
The actor appeared on “The Rich Eisen Show” to talk about his upcoming film, “Paper Tiger,” which premiered at Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. During the interview, Eisen asked if he planned on returning to the sci-fi/fantasy franchise, which prompted Driver to discuss “The Hunt for Ben Solo,” a sequel to “The Rise of Skywalker” that he and Steven Soderbergh worked on that ultimately wasn’t picked up by Disney.
“We tried to do one more, yeah, but they were like, ‘No, he’s dead,’” Driver said, referring to Ben Solo’s demise in “Episode IX.”
“Yeah, I know, but, I mean, these things, you can make anything up,” Eisner responded. “I don’t know if you’re aware Darth Vader turned out to be somebody’s father, you know? That came out of nowhere back in the day.”
Driver said that he and Soderbergh worked on the potential Ben Solo starring vehicle “really and earnestly for two years,” pulling together a “really good” script with Scott Z. Burns and Jules Asner (under the pseudonym Rebecca Blunt). The film was ultimately passed on by Disney executives after it was brought to them by Lucasfilm.
Driver noted that someone at Disney or Lucasfilm could resurrect the project “if they wanted to,” but that he thinks “the ship has sailed.”
“The fans’ response to it, though, was pretty incredible. I didn’t expect that it was going to be billboards and people flying planes over Disney and things like that,” Driver noted. “That was pretty cool.”
The next “Star Wars” film to release in theaters will be “Star Wars: Starfighter,” an all-new adventure helmed by Shawn Levy, penned by Jonathan Tropper and starring Ryan Gosling. That will fly into theaters on May 28, 2027.
