'We've Got Creativity, Money, and Time' — Star Wars Superfans Refuse to Give Up Trying to Convince Disney to U-Turn on Scrapped The Hunt for Ben Solo Movie

Star Wars superfans are inactive trying to person Disney to marque canceled movie The Hunt For Ben Solo a world — and they’re putting their wealth wherever their mouths are.

Last year, a ‘Ben Solo Missing’ poster was plastered each implicit Los Angeles and was subsequently seen crossed the world, having been translated into implicit 11 languages. Now, its creator has taken the adjacent measurement and afloat funded a takeover of 2 much billboards successful Times Square.

One was featured connected apical of a gathering successful Times Square connected January 3, 2026, the different was disposable successful Times Square connected January 5, close supra the Pele store. This determination besides happens to beryllium successful adjacent proximity to the Disney store — and it’s Disney these hardcore Star Wars fans anticipation volition reconsider its determination to ditch The Hunt For Ben Solo.

Brianna Johns designed and paid for the Times Square takeover. Photo by @rebeccaseal.

Both billboards featured Ben's silhouette with the phrase, "May 2026 renew anticipation successful the postulation and bring him home," arsenic good arsenic the hashtag #thehuntforbensolo, with the latest besides including the campaign's website, savebensolo.com.

It’s chiefly the enactment of Brianna Johns, writer, dependable actor, and self-confessed “avid” Star Wars fan. Johns told IGN The Hunt For Ben Solo instrumentality run has a fewer 100 progressive fans connected its Discord server, but insisted “the tendency for this film’s fruition is live and good fandom-wide.” Johns pointed retired that implicit 7,100 radical person signed the petition connected Change.org since its instauration successful October, erstwhile Kylo Ren / Ben Solo histrion Adam Driver dropped the quality astir his enactment with Steven Soderbergh to proceed Ben's story. “The quality was the catalyst for my missing posters and wherefore I plastered them astir LA,” Johns explained. “Since then, they’ve been seen each astir the world.”

Late past year, Driver dropped a bombshell to the Associated Press that he’d spent the past fewer years processing The Hunt for Ben Solo. The Lucasfilm-approved but Bob Iger-nixed nonstop follow-up to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was confirmed by attached manager Steven Soderbergh, and connected aggregate occasions the fanbase has hired planes to bash fly-overs of the Walt Disney Studio batch successful Burbank to rally enactment — thing Rey Skywalker histrion Daisy Ridley has responded positively to.

Brianna Johns won't halt trying to person Disney to greenlight The Hunt for Ben Solo. Photo by @rebeccaseal.

Soderbergh, the brains down the project, has revealed that the determination not to greenlight the completed Lucasfilm publication for the movie was a archetypal for Disney. “In the aftermath of the HFBS situation, I asked Kathy Kennedy if [Lucasfilm] had ever turned successful a finished movie publication for greenlight to Disney and had it rejected,” Soderbergh said. “She said no, this was a first.”

The movie would person taken spot pursuing The Rise of Skywalker and centered connected Adam Driver’s quality Kylo Ren and his quest for redemption. Driver told the Associated Press that The Hunt For Ben Solo was “one of the coolest f—king scripts I had ever been a portion of.”

Driver played Ben Solo / Kylo Ren successful each of the 3 films successful Lucasfilm’s Sequel Trilogy, with his last quality successful 2019’s divisive The Rise of Skywalker. “I ever was funny successful doing different Star Wars,” Driver said. He revealed helium had been successful talks astir different Star Wars movie since 2021, and that Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy had “reached out.”

“I ever said: with a large manager and a large story, I’d beryllium determination successful a second,” Driver commented. “I loved that quality and loved playing him."

Driver said Lucasfilm “loved the idea” and “totally understood our space and wherefore we were doing it.” However, Disney CEO Bob Iger and Disney co-chairman Alan Bergman said no. "They didn’t spot however Ben Solo was alive. And that was that,” helium said. Soderbergh told AP: “I truly enjoyed making the movie successful my head. I’m conscionable atrocious the fans won’t get to spot it.”

Driver was described arsenic feeling mystified by the decision, insisting the program was to “be judicial astir however to walk wealth and beryllium economical with it, and bash it for little than astir but successful the aforesaid tone of what those movies are, which is handmade and character-driven.” He pointed to the much-loved Empire Strikes Back arsenic being “the modular of what those movies were.”

If feels arsenic if The Hunt for Ben Solo is good and genuinely dead, but Brianna Johns refuses to springiness up. “Ben's disappearance not lone near a spread successful the hearts of Star Wars fans everywhere, it besides tore done the precise cloth of the franchise,” Johns told IGN. “The Hunt For Ben Solo reignited a spark wrong america each and brought america together, a momentous juncture for a fandom typically astatine odds. Now fans of each ages from astir the globe person mobilized for a communal goal: to bring Ben location and proceed his saga.

“Why volition we succeed? We're passionate and resolute; we program to beryllium truthful bully they can’t disregard us. What’s more, Disney already spent $3 cardinal connected the film’s publication and plans to walk $24 cardinal connected contented for this year. We anticipation our actions volition animate them to unfastened their imaginations and wallets the aforesaid mode we have. We cognize what we’re asking, the outgo of a movie of this size to spell into accumulation and the selling and organisation that travel after. We judge if we tin beryllium the request is there, they volition reconsider. That’s our hope. And isn’t anticipation what Star Wars is each about?

“The Hunt For Ben Solo Fan Campaign is prepared to spell the region for this movie to beryllium made. I purchased 2 billboards astatine the commencement of the twelvemonth to amusement the fans are inactive present and we’re conscionable getting started. We’ve got creativity, money, and time. (We'd emotion to walk that wealth connected movie tickets.) Our extremity astatine the extremity of the day? Kicking backmost with buckets of popcorn arsenic we ticker The Hunt For Ben Solo successful theaters. Honestly, we don't deliberation that's excessively overmuch to ask.”

Last month, Daisy Ridley told IGN, “I knew a portion of it. I heard rumblings,” erstwhile asked astir Driver’s revelation. “I person tons of friends who are crew, truthful things ever question similar that. But, whoa! When the communicative came out, no, I was like, 'Oh, my God!' And it was him that said it, right?” Ridley added that she recovered the instrumentality run that sprung up pursuing the quality heart-warming.

“I bash emotion erstwhile determination is simply a corporate of positivity,” she said. “The mode the net seems to person rallied to effort and get it to happen. I deliberation one), it's fantastic for america all. It's bully for america to each beryllium agreed astir thing successful a truly affirmative way. Obviously, everyone knows helium was a precise fashionable character, but it was besides beauteous to think, 'Wow, radical really, truly attraction and privation this.' I just... I similar it. I similar erstwhile radical articulation forces — excuse the pun — from each astir the world, each antithetic sorts of people. I conscionable emotion that the Star Wars fandom is specified a immense and gorgeous array of antithetic points of presumption and antithetic people, and the information that everyone is truly down this thing, I think, is conscionable benignant of lovely, successful a clip that is truthful f***ing nuts for astir apt each azygous idiosyncratic connected this Earth. I deliberation it's wonderful. So I was surprised, and honestly, I felt joyful astir however it went down.”

In the abbreviated term, Jon Favreau's The Mandalorian & Grogu movie comes retired May 2026, past Shawn Levy's Star Wars: Starfighter releases May 2027. TV wise, Ahsoka Season 2 is successful improvement but without a merchandise date.

Ridley's Rey film, assuming it really gets made, takes spot astir 15 years aft the events of The Rise of Skywalker arsenic she looks to rebuild the Jedi Order.

Wesley is Director, News astatine IGN. Find him connected Twitter astatine @wyp100. You tin scope Wesley astatine [email protected] oregon confidentially astatine [email protected].