Having spent the best part of the past five years looking to get the next Star Trek movie up and running, it was announced back in August that Paramount Pictures has decided to press pause on project as the studio reassesses its big screen plans for the iconic sci-fi franchise.
Since 2016’s Star Trek Beyond, there’s been three different incarnations of the next movie: a follow-up featuring the NuTrek crew and pairing Chris Pine’s James T. Kirk with Chris Hemsworth’s George Kirk; a pitch from Quentin Tarantino described as “Pulp Fiction in space”; and most recently, a concept from Fargo and Legion creator Noah Hawley which he described as “his own take” – and one that wouldn’t have included Pine or any other cast members from the Kelvin timeline.
Speaking to The Observer, Hawley has explained why he wanted to take things in a new direction, stating that:
“What I love about Star Trek is that it’s not a war story. It’s not a story in which might makes right. It’s a story about exploration. It’s a story about creative problem solving. My favorite moment in all of Star Trek is in Wrath of Khan when Kirk puts on his reading glasses to lower Khan’s shields. It’s a brief moment that is so exhilarating because he’s using the best tool he has, which is his mind.
“As much as I like the Chris Pine movies they were mostly about running from one end of the ship to the other to put out a fire, to stop a thing, and then before he could catch his breath he had to do something else. They’re much more action movies and what I wanted to get back to was this idea of humanity justifying existence in the universe by showing its best qualities.”
According to reports, Hawley’s pitch incorporated a virus which was responsible for wiping out vast parts of the universe, and so given current global events, it’s entirely understandable why Paramount got cold feet.
