Trying to keep an eye on what’s going on with the feature-length Star Trek franchise is becoming increasingly difficult even if things are looking pretty rosy on the small screen, with Discovery recently acknowledging J.J. Abrams’ Kelvin timeline for the very first time, while executive producer Alex Kurtzman no doubt has much bigger plans in mind given that he’s mapped out the future on television until 2027.
Paramount may have denied they’d given up on making Trek movies, but the series is hardly riding a wave of momentum right now. Star Trek 4 looked the most likely to happen for a spell, but stalled not long after Chris Pine agreed to return having originally walked away alongside onscreen father Chris Hemsworth, while S.J. Clarkson was briefly attached to direct.
Noah Hawley then looked to swoop in with his own Star Trek project, which would have acted as another reboot and shied away from the action-orientated spectacle of the Kelvin adventures in favor of a return to the roots of what made the brand so popular in the first place. However, Hawley admitted that it wasn’t happening anytime soon, and followed that up by jumping ship to an Alien show for FX on Hulu.
Incredibly, that leaves Quentin Tarantino’s R-rated effort as the last one standing, even though there’s no chance he’ll direct. Co-writer Mark L. Smith recently revealed that the 1930s-set gangster story would place a heavy emphasis on Captain Kirk, which would indicate the script is still being worked on, and insider Daniel Richtman now claims that multiple R-rated Star Trek movies are in development. Unfortunately, he offers no further details, but it seems that this is a direction that the studio is keen on heading in.
