The fallout from Adam Driver’s revelation that Disney rejected the idea for a Kylo Ren-centric Star Wars film just hit the stratosphere — literally. Star Wars fans furious over Disney’s decision to kill The Hunt for Ben Solo have taken their protest airborne, flying a banner over Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California, that read: “SAVE THE HUNT FOR BEN SOLO.”
Fans coordinated a plane with a #TheHuntForBenSolo banner to fly over Disney HQ today… I think people want to see Adam Drivers Star Wars movie 😭 pic.twitter.com/Woh9SCGOqy
— Will of The Force – Will Diamond (@Will_ofTheForce) October 23, 2025
According to Collider, which had a reporter on-site for the stunt, the banner circled the studio’s lot and nearby areas on Tuesday afternoon, drawing plenty of attention both from employees on the ground and fans online. Photos of the banner quickly went viral, marking one of the most visible fan protests against Disney’s handling of Star Wars in years.
The Fan Rebellion Takes Flight
The fan-funded flight comes just days after Driver confirmed in an Associated Press interview that he and director Steven Soderbergh spent two years developing a Star Wars sequel film centered on Ben Solo — the redeemed form of Kylo Ren — only for Disney CEO Bob Iger and studio chairman Alan Bergman to reject it.
Bob Iger via CNBC Television YouTube
The project, titled The Hunt for Ben Solo, was backed by Lucasfilm executives Kathleen Kennedy, Dave Filoni, and Cary Beck. Driver described the script, co-written by Soderbergh’s Logan Lucky collaborator Rebecca Blunt and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns (Contagion, The Report), as one of the best he’d ever been part of — calling it “the standard” for what a Star Wars movie “should be.”
Driver said Disney executives turned the film down because they “didn’t see how Ben Solo was alive,” despite the studio’s history of reviving and reimagining other Star Wars characters through flashbacks, Force visions, and cloning storylines.
In reality, the script was likely rejected because of diminishing theatrical returns for the Star Wars universe following the highly divisive film The Last Jedi.
A Strange Fan Uprising
The latest protest isn’t exactly the kind of movement most people expected. For years, Kylo Ren has ranked among the least popular characters in the Disney sequel trilogy — a villain many fans viewed as the face of everything that went wrong with the modern Star Wars era. His brooding arc and abrupt redemption never resonated the way the studio hoped, leaving audiences divided and disillusioned.
That’s what makes this sudden Save The Hunt for Ben Solo campaign so unusual. A small corner of the fandom has latched onto Adam Driver’s revelation, treating the cancelled project as a lost masterpiece despite there being no footage, trailer, or even confirmed plot details beyond a name. The airborne protest over Disney Studios — complete with a banner calling for the film’s revival — seems to speak more to the desperation of Star Wars fans hungry for anything different than to genuine affection for Kylo Ren.
Adam Driver as Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens (2015), Lucasfilm
It’s seemingly less a grassroots revolution and more a symptom of exhaustion. After years of cancelled films, failing Disney+ series, and constant creative reshuffling, the fanbase has splintered into smaller and smaller factions, each convinced their version of Star Wars is the “real” one.
The irony is hard to miss: the same fans who once mocked the sequel trilogy are now campaigning for a spinoff of its most polarizing character — not out of love for him, but because Disney’s current slate inspires even less confidence.
Context: A Franchise in Turbulence
Driver’s comments landed at an already fragile moment for the franchise. The Star Wars brand has struggled to regain its former momentum since The Rise of Skywalker. Despite early streaming success with The Mandalorian, Disney’s subsequent Star Wars shows — including The Acolyte, Ahsoka, and Skeleton Crew — have been plagued by steep costs, declining viewership, and overwhelming fan backlash.
(L-R): Dave Filoni and Rosario Dawson on the set of Lucasfilm’s STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
Meanwhile, a recent Forbes report by Caroline Reid revealed that The Rise of Skywalker itself actually lost money, with production costs nearing $600 million and marketing adding another $150–200 million. The film’s supposed billion-dollar box office haul translated to almost nothing once expenses were counted.
For fans, that financial failure illustrates what they see as Disney’s creative mismanagement of Star Wars. And now, by turning down a film backed by Lucasfilm and Soderbergh — a director known for making profitable, well-crafted mid-budget projects — critics say the studio is proving it’s more interested in control than creativity. Still, others claim that Disney simply spared us from more sequel-era Star Wars.
The Road Ahead
Star Wars will return to theaters with The Mandalorian and Grogu scheduled for May 22, 2026, and Shawn Levy’s Starfighter aiming for May 28, 2027. But even those announcements feel hollow. The same studio that once turned every Star Wars reveal into a global event can barely convince fans to care anymore.
Daisy Ridley as Rey and Adam Driver as Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens (2015), Lucasfilm
The latest “Save The Hunt for Ben Solo” protest isn’t a sign of renewed hope — it’s a symptom of how far the brand has fallen. When fans start rallying around a scrapped spin-off about one of the franchise’s most disliked characters, it doesn’t show passion; it shows fatigue mixed with desperation.
Disney has spent years trying to recapture the magic it lost. Instead, it’s ended up with a fractured fanbase, declining viewership, and a creative direction no one seems to believe in. Whether The Hunt for Ben Solo would have fixed that or just added another oddity to the pile is anyone’s guess — but the fact that people are begging for it tells you everything you need to know about where Star Wars stands in 2025.
What’s your opinion on the “Save The Hunt for Ben Solo” plane stunt? Sound off in the comments and let us know!
