This year’s CinemaCon brought a flurry of unexpected updates on the future of Star Trek films. In the wake of the box office failure of Star Trek Beyond, a fourth entry in the rebooted franchise seemed unlikely. The extent of Quentin Tarantino’s involvement, announced several months ago, remained unclear. No cast member has a signed contract, and no release is scheduled. But now we have some clarity — and it suggests that after years of fumbling the ball, Paramount has finally figured out how to make good use of Star Trek.
What We Know
Paramount CEO Jim Gianopolous has confirmed that not one, but two films are in development. This marks the first time that multiple Star Trek movies have been in pre-production at the same time.
The first is the sequel to Beyond, originally announced in 2016. It will feature Chris Hemsworth returning as George Kirk and, according to reports, will be helmed by S.J. Clarkson. Clarkson, if confirmed, will become the franchise’s first female film director.
While reuniting the cast of the previous films and adding Hemsworth is likely to be expensive, the studio apparently views Star Trek as a “crown jewel” and is willing to put up the money.
The second film is Tarantino’s mysterious project, currently being scripted by The Revenant screenwriter Mark L. Smith. The movie will be released sometime after Star Trek 4, and no director is attached. Most interestingly, it is apparently not set in the rebooted Kelvin timeline, allowing Tarantino maximum creative freedom.
While much remains unclear at this point, all of this news is exciting. Not just because we’re getting lots more Star Trek (don’t forget, Season 2 of Discovery just started production), but because it suggests that Paramount has finally figured out how to prioritize Star Trek.
Paramount Has Consistently Dropped the Ball With the Film Franchise
In an age of shared cinematic universes, it has been endlessly frustrating to watch Paramount waste Star Trek. In 2009, J.J. Abrams delivered a critical and commercial smash, uniting a perfect cast and delivering one of the best entries in the franchise.
The studio’s approach since then, however, has been a disaster. It took four years to get a sequel, and then three more to get a third. All three have been well-reviewed, and Beyond was certainly the best Trek film since at least First Contact 20 years earlier. But a pitiful marketing campaign meant very few people got to the theatre to see it. For years, idle speculation has floated around about a “Star Trek cinematic universe”, but to no avail.
Why did this happen? Well, in 2009, the craze was “auteur blockbuster trilogies”, in the vein of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight films. By the release of Into Darkness in 2013, The Avengers had changed the landscape and caught everyone flat-footed. That was also when J.J. Abrams jumped ship to direct The Force Awakens, leaving the Star Trek franchise rudderless.
Since then, Paramount’s own internal turmoil has left it unable or unwilling to commit to Star Trek as its answer to Disney’s ever-expanding roster of bankable franchises.
Until now.
What This Could Mean For Star Trek
With Paramount having undergone a reorientation after several bad years, Star Trek is now, apparently, a big priority. The decision to incorporate big names like Hemsworth and Tarantino into the plan and to bet big on diverse talent shows renewed confidence.
The prospect of multiple timelines also hints at the development of a shared universe in the vein of Star Wars or Fox’s X-Men. Those franchises eschew Marvel’s obsession with interconnected storytelling with separation between different corners of their universe. This approach is probably the best one for Star Trek too. Don’t like the Kelvin timeline? Fine, now you can try “Tarantino Trek”.
Of course, it is too early to know exactly how all of this will shake out. S.J. Clarkson is an unknown quantity as a film director, having only helmed one feature back in 2010, and she has not even officially signed onto the project. Cast members have yet to sign any contracts, and some of them may not come cheap — particularly Zoe Saldana, whose commitments to the MCU and the Avatar sequels may tighten her schedule.
Tarantino’s film has no timeline, with the director currently focused on directing Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. And rumours have swirled recently of a merger between CBS and Paramount’s parent company, Viacom, which would unite the TV and movie sides of the franchise and probably change the agenda. Much can still happen.
But this looks like it could be the beginning of a revival of the Star Trek film brand, which for too long has been squandered by a studio that wasn’t sure what to do with it. For now, fans should take heart: Paramount seems to finally be giving Star Trek its due.
