Quentin Tarantino’s making a Star Trek movie, and everyone wants to be part of it. Or so it seems. And if that wasn’t exciting enough, it’ll be rated R, which ensures that QT’s film really will go boldly where no one has gone before.
Paramount and J.J. Abrams reportedly agreed to that condition early last month, when Tarantino hashed out ideas with three high-profile screenwriters: Mark L. Smith (The Revenant), Lindsey Beer (Chaos Walking, Godzilla Vs. Kong), and Drew Pearce (Iron Man 3). Word is Smith has emerged as an early frontrunner to land the gig, which will quietly simmer on the back-burner while Tarantino tends to his Charles Manson movie.
But circling back to Star Trek, it would seem that everyone’s eager to be involved – not that we blame them – and the latest person to voice their interest is John Cho, who of course played Sulu in all three films in the rebooted series. As such, we imagine he’d be returning for QT’s effort, too, but apparently, that might not be the case.
Speaking on Larry King Now, the actor said that he doesn’t yet know if he’ll have a role in the pic, but he’s certainly hopeful:
“I don’t know. I hope so.” Cho explained. “I think he’s brilliant. I would like to do some Quentin Tarantino dialogue as Sulu.”
Elsewhere in the interview, he revealed why playing Sulu is so special to him:
“Me and my little brother used to pretend that we flew spaceships, as a kid. As all little boys did. So when you come on the set of the Enterprise, it awakens all of those childlike feelings. And it’s to scale and it’s huge and you grew up on it, it was on television. So it is a very unique acting opportunity.”
As we mentioned above, seeing as Cho has been on board since Abrams rebooted Star Trek back in 2009, we imagine he’ll be returning to reprise his role and probably just can’t confirm it yet since it’s still early days. Then again, who knows? Tarantino might have other plans for the franchise.
After all, the general reaction to the news that the director is boarding the iconic sci-fi property can be summed up in three letters. W, T and F. I mean, how on earth can the famously idiosyncratic filmmaker, know for his absurdly violent genre cinema, slot neatly into the pristine and sober world of Star Trek?
They say opposites attract, though, and perhaps Tarantino could be just the guy to inject a shot of adrenaline into the venerable franchise’s bloodstream. Fingers crossed, eh?