Either you didn’t know a live-action Ben 10 film was happening, or forgot it was, but any which way it doesn’t matter, because it’s been canned, seemingly.
Ah, Ben 10. You were a fine enough show that mostly survived on the strength of fun alien designs and the 10-year-old-boy power fantasy of being able to turn into a whole universe’s worth of aliens, but you’ve mostly been forgotten about since the 2016 reboot series. There are still plenty of fans of the original series around, but unfortunately for them, it seems like the series is staying asleep for a while longer. Back in 2011, it was reported that Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, and The Matrix producer Joel Silver would be handling a fully fledged, silver screen live-action film adaptation on the animated series, but 13 years later and it’s pretty clear that that isn’t happening, made all the more obvious by a comment from its other producer, Steve Richards.
While speaking to The Direct at the premiere for Richards’ latest film, The Killer’s Game, the producer was asked what was happening with the Ben 10 film. “I have to admit, I should update my IMDb,” Richards responded. “No. So, when I was working with Joel Silver, we had the rights to that, and, yeah, that expired… But it should get made, right?” That obviously won’t be welcome news to those who are still fans of the series, but hey ho, that’s the way of Hollywood, unfortunately.
It should be noted that while Silver had had a lengthy partnership with Warner Bros., Ben 10’s rights holder, in 2012 he ended his 25-year-long relationship with them over disagreements he had with how it handled things like the production and marketing of his films. This resulted in a $30 million payout for the producer, and likely ending any chance a Ben 10 film would be made under his name. One could still happen, if Warner Bros. decides to mine that IP well, but nothing appears to be in the works right now.
MultiVersus fans have also previously expressed a lot of interest in Ben 10 being added to the platform fighter, though two years on that’s still yet to materialise.