Driver played Kylo Ren (a.k.a. Ben Solo) beginning in “The Force Awakens.”

Adam Driver says Disney turned down a Ben Solo Star Wars movie he pitched with Steven Soderbergh

Driver played Kylo Ren (a.k.a. Ben Solo) beginning in "The Force Awakens."

By Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt is a writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2024. Her work has previously appeared on Yahoo and in American *Journalism Review* and *The Shreveport Times*.

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October 20, 2025 9:09 p.m. ET

Adam Driver as Kylo Ren in 'Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker'. Credit:

If Adam Driver had it his way, he would have returned to the *Star Wars *universe.

The *Marriage Story* actor played the villainous character Kylo Ren, who was born and known early on as Ben Solo, over several movies, beginning with 2015's *Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens*.

"I always was interested in doing another *Star Wars*," Driver told the Associated Press in an interview published Monday. "I had been talking about doing another one since 2021. [Producer] 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."

Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver's 'Marriage Story' fight being used to scare off wolves

Adam Driver says Kylo Ren's 'Star Wars' story was originally darker

After he took an idea to director Steve Soderbergh, with events set after 2019's *Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker*, Kennedy and a writer, Scott Z. Burns, of *Contagion* and* The Bourne Ultimatum*, got involved too.

"It was called *The Hunt for Ben Solo *and it was really cool," Driver said. "But it is no more, so I can finally talk about it."

Cause of death: rejection.

Adam Driver and Producer Steven Soderbergh photographed in 2017.

Ian West/PA Images via Getty

"We presented the script to Lucasfilm. They loved the idea. They totally understood our angle and why we were doing it," Driver said. "We took it to Bob Iger and Alan Bergman, and they said no. They didn't see how Ben Solo was alive. And that was that."****** has reached out to Disney and Lucasfilm for comment on Driver's remarks.

Soderbergh said in a statement to AP that "I really enjoyed making the movie in my head. I'm just sorry the fans won’t get to see it."

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Driver has previously spoken about his character's arc having morphed into something else over the course of making the trilogy Driver was involved in. He was originally written as darker and didn't become softer over time.

“I had an overall arc in mind that [director J.J. Abrams] wanted to do, which, you know, then changed," Driver said on *The Rich Eisen Show* in 2024. "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 then by the last movie, he's the most vulnerable and weak — he wanted to start with the opposite."

Driver next appears in *Father Mother Sister Brother*, directed by Jim Jarmusch, which arrives in theaters on Dec. 24.**

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Source: “AOL Movies”