After the first attempt at a direct sequel to 2016’s Star Trek Beyond fizzled out, Paramount turned to Fargo’s Noah Hawley to write, direct, and produce a whole new take on a Star Trek feature film. That movie was on track to start production in 2020 when it got killed off by a new Paramount exec. Now Hawley is talking more about his dormant Trek feature, and how he is holding out hope that it could live again under Paramount’s new management.
Paramount wanted to “play it safe” with Star Trek
Noah Hawley was the guest in the latest episode of the popular Smartless podcast. As the long discussion was wrapping up co-host Jason Bateman noted it would be “criminal” if they didn’t ask about Hawley’s Star Trek movie. Hawley said that after making his 2019 film Lucy in the Sky, he wanted to try something “a little bigger,” and he explains what drew him to Star Trek:
“It’s all franchises. And I thought, everything’s war, right? Star Wars is war, and Marvel is war. But Star Trek isn’t war. Star Trek is exploration, right? It’s people solving problems by being smarter than the other guy.”
As an example of how Star Trek uses brains, Hawley pointed to the scene in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan when Kirk outsmarts Khan by lowering the USS Reliant’s shields, as the “best moment” from the “best movie” in the franchise, adding “It costs like 45 cents, but you see, ‘Oh, he’s smarter than Khan.”
William Shatner as James T. Kirk in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Hawley again recalls the typical Hollywood story of what happened next:
“I wrote it. They said, ‘We love it. Let’s prep it.’ I was going to move to Australia. We were booking stages. And then, as happens in Hollywood, Jim Gianopulos, who was running the studio at the time, he he’s like, I’m going to bring in somebody else under me, and they’re going to take over the film studio. And the first thing they did was kill the original Star Trek movie. They said, ‘Well, how do we know people are going to like it? Shouldn’t we do a transition movie from Chris Pine, play it safe. And so it kind of went away.”
The specific executive that killed the movie was Emma Watts who joined Paramount as head of feature films in 2020 after jumping ship from Fox. The concept of doing a transition from Kelvin to the new original concept is not entirely unreasonable or unprecedented. Of course Star Trek: Generations was a transition movie from the TOS to TNG era films. And even the first Kelvin movie, 2009’s Star Trek, itself had connections to the Prime Timeline in the TNG era, notably through Leonard Nimoy’s Spock Prime character. However, springing it on Hawley as he is set to start shooting was unreasonable. Such a fundamental element almost certainly couldn’t just be shoehorned into to his movie at the last minute.
Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy in 2009 Star Trek movie (Paramount Pictures)
After Hawley’s Trek was shelved, it was Watts that pivoted back to make what the studio had said was to be the fourth and final Kelvin movie starring Chris Pine. That attempt at a “Star Trek 4” was handed to director Matt Shakman and after going through several scripts it was ready to start shooting in 2022. But, like with Hawley’s Trek, the project was abruptly shut down not long before cameras were set to start rolling. Shakman exited to direct what became this summer’s Fantastic 4 movie and Trek returned to development hell… at least until recently.
Talked to Ellison about his Trek
As for Hawley, he is just coming off the critically acclaimed FX series Alien: Earth, which has been renewed for a new season to shoot next year. But he hasn’t forgotten that script he wrote for Star Trek, and he has even made a pitch to the new man in charge of Paramount. On Smartless, Hawley revealed:
“I talked to David Ellison recently, and I was like, ‘You still haven’t made a Star Trek movie.’ I’m just saying it’s in there.”
It’s unclear when this podcast episode was recorded, as a couple of weeks ago Paramount did announce their next Star Trek move for the big screen. The studio has once again shelved any plan for a follow-up to Beyond, likely ending future adventures in the Kelvin Universe. Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, who made Spider-Man: Homecoming and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves are developing a new original Star Trek movie, apparently with new characters not tied into any previous movies or series.
But who is to say Hawley and his concept can’t make a comeback? Star Trek is a big universe and if things go well, Paramount could look to develop multiple Trek features, as has been seen in other franchises.
Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com