Adam Driver Proves Disney Has No Clue What They're Doing with 'Star Wars,' as They Killed the One Sequel Idea That Might Have Actually Been Good
Handout. Getty Images.History may look back on Disney's mishandling of the Star Wars franchise as the biggest mistake in the history of popular entertainment. That is, if we're not at that point already.
The biggest media conglomerate in the world paid $4.05 billion for the rights to do whatever they wanted with Lucasfilms' intellectual properties, only to demonstrate they didn't know what to do with Lucasfilms' intellectual properties. And chose not to listen to the man who created said multi-billion dollar properties out of his own intellect, George Lucas.
Star Wars is more than just a pop culture phenomenon. It's nothing less than a lifestyle for a lot of people. Generations have grown up on it. I saw A New Hope in the theater when I was 14, and it left a lasting imprint. I raised two sons who had the DVDs, the video games, the action figures, the Lego sets. And who grew up on the much-maligned prequel trilogy. I've even emceed a wedding that had a largely Star Wars theme, where the bride and groom walked out together to John Williams' "Throne Room" music. (My version of "Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians" but told all in Obi Wan and Yoda quotes about the Force is something I'll share someday because I was particularly proud of it.) Meaning that Disney bought access to the most loyal, dedicated, and emotionally invested fan base in all of culture. And have never missed an opportunity to alienate them.
The sequel trilogy made money. But the numbers speak for themselves. The first one grossed over $2 billion. The second, $1.3 billion. The last one, just over $1 billion. (The stand-alone film Rogue One cracked $1 billion, while Solo: A Star Wars Story actually set fire to a massive pile of Disney bucks.) You have to really cock things up to lose half your audience from the first episode of a trilogy to the last. And JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson managed to do exactly that. Which is why it's been six years without another movie and the next one coming out is a spinoff of The Mandalorian TV series that had one good season and has been spinning its wheels ever since.
Which brings us to the movie the Mouse failed to make. Which proves beyond a doubt the people in charge haven't the first clue about what their audience wants:
Source - Adam Driver and Steven Soderbergh almost brought their own twist to a galaxy far, far away.
In a recent sit down with AP, Driver said that over the span of two years, he and Soderbergh developed a script called “The Hunt for Ben Solo.” The film would have taken place after the events of “The Rise of Skywalker,” and followed Driver’s Kylo Ren, aka Ben Solo, on a search for redemption.
Soderbergh roughed out the story with “Logan Lucky” screenwriter Rebecca Blunt. Scott Z. Burns later joined to pen the script.
“I always was interested in doing another ‘Star Wars,’” Driver said. … “I loved that character and loved playing him.”
Driver described the film as “handmade and character-driven,” comparing it to 1980’s “The Empire Strikes Back.” …
“We presented the script to Lucasfilm. They loved the idea,” Driver recalled. “They totally understood our angle and why we were doing it. 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.” …
Soderbergh told AP of the experience, “I really enjoyed making the movie in my head. I’m just sorry the fans won’t get to see it.” Driver agreed, calling the project “one of the coolest (expletive) scripts I had ever been a part of.”
Let's review. The actor who played the most interesting, fleshed-out original character from the sequels and the director who made the Ocean's 11 films, Contagion, and the Magic Mike movies decide to collaborate. They have a whole concept about the character's story arc. They bring in accomplished screenwriters to come up with a script. And the two studio heads Bob Iger and Alan Bergman scrap the idea because … Kylo Ren/Ben Solo died in the last movie. Have I got that right?
This is the same company that allowed Jar Jar Abrams to bring back Palpatine four decades after Darth Vader tossed him down a bottomless shaft in a battle station that was turned to space shrapnel 40 years earlier. In fact, they greenlit having the Death Star be largely intact on the planet surface after we watched it explode into smoke and sparks. Because Abrams didn't know where else to go with the story and was making it up as he went along. And in order to pull this stunning turn of events out of his ass, he just played it off as a joke in the worst example of lazy, giving-no-shits storytelling in cinema history:
That's just the worst example, by no means the only one. The Disney animated shows brought back Dark Maul after he was sent down a bottomless shaft on a battle station too. And he went down in two pieces because Obi Wan sliced him in half across his belt line. But when it was convenient to the plot of a kids show, he was rescued by some droid who gave him robot spider legs. And the main character in the terrible Book of Boba Fett series crawled out of a Sarlaac pit where he was supposed to be slowly digested over a thousand years. Just as Patton Oswald ad-libbed on Parks and Rec:
But now, with all these people who are dedicated to actually making something out of the mess Disney has make, turning out some chicken salad with the chicken shit they've produced to this point, we can't be having characters return from the dead because it won't make narrative sense. Even though no one remembers Ben Solo's death because it was such an unmemorable moment at the end of a trilogy we'd all tuned out because it was so fucking absurd by that point.
I'm sorry for Driver and Soderbergh and anyone else who wanted to make the effort to salvage this damaged brand. While at the same time I'm glad Iger and Bergman were too stupid to let them do it. Any studio that signed off on "Chewie was on a different transport":
… doesn't deserve success.