Rumors of Adam Driver joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe have been put to rest by Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, who revealed that the actor had repeatedly rejected offers to join the franchise.
Feige described their recurring back-and-forth as a “long-lived tradition,” while in conversation with Josh Horowitz on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast.
“It’s no secret we’d like to [work with Driver]. But it’s a tradition to Zoom with him and then he passes. He couldn’t be more cordial. He is usually upfront about how he is feeling,” Feige remarked. However, the producer did not specify which characters Driver had previously been offered.
His comments also addressed years of speculation linking Driver to several Marvel roles, including Reed Richards in The Fantastic Four and characters in the studio’s upcoming X-Men reboot.
Entertainment insider Jeff Sneider previously claimed on “The Hot Mic” podcast that Marvel had sent Driver a script to play Reed Richards in The Fantastic Four, though neither Marvel nor Driver has publicly confirmed those reports.
“When I asked someone about Fantastic Four, they said…like I said it comes down to money, so I think Adam Driver may have priced himself out. That may have been the situation. He may have just started asking for too much money,” Sneider said.
Driver built his blockbuster credentials playing Kylo Ren, also known as Ben Solo, across Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker between 2015 and 2019. That trilogy remains his only major franchise role to date.
Driver’s interest in returning to blockbuster filmmaking has remained closely tied to Star Wars. Speaking to the Associated Press, he revealed that he and director Steven Soderbergh spent two years developing a new Star Wars film, though the project was ultimately shelved by Disney.
Driver said he would still be open to returning to the franchise under the right circumstances.
“I always was interested in doing another Star Wars… 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,” he said.
“We presented the script to Lucasfilm. They loved the idea. 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,” he explained.
The project even had a name, before being scrapped: “It was called ‘The Hunt for Ben Solo,’ and it was really cool. But it is no more, so I can finally talk about it.”
Driver broke out playing Adam Sackler in HBO’s Girls and then pivoted hard into more serious roles. He has two Oscar nominations so far: Best Supporting Actor for BlacKkKlansman and Best Actor for Marriage Story, the latter a Noah Baumbach divorce drama that has become a cult classic now.
Although there aren’t any Marvel projects in his bag, the roster of directors he has worked with is impressive. It includes Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee, Ridley Scott and Michael Mann, among others.
