Star Trek: Lower Decks creator and showrunner Mike McMahan has revealed his ideas for expanding the franchise on the big screen.
In an interview with ComicBook.com following the conclusion of Lower Decks’ fourth season on Paramount+, McMahan spoke about the endless possibilities of not only a movie about the U.S.S. Cerritos crew but also expanding the Star Trek franchise with fresh new stories. “I have an idea for an animated Lower Decks movie,” McMahan said.
“I have ideas for live-action Lower Decks movies,” he continued. “And I have ideas for brand new, totally original Star Trek movies that don’t tie into anything we’ve seen before. I think Star Trek is an amazing genre to think about. I love the idea of not micro but small-budget Star Trek movies, where you get the bigness of a movie set, but you get to tell a Star Trek story that drives across a moment instead of a thing that has to be dealt with, like a Khan.”
McMahan went on to explain how he believes a cinematic expansion of the Star Trek universe could rival that of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “I think there are cool ways to make Star Trek movies that aren’t quite like the Marvel system and aren’t quite like DC or the superheroes in general, but I would love a world where there’s going to be Star Trek movies all the time, and when you go, you don’t know which crew it’s going to be about or if it’s going to be a comedy or suspense or a drama,” he said.
“I loved Captain America: The Winter Soldier, that it went from the first one [Captain America: The First Avenger] being a period piece superhero movie to being a spy thriller,” McMahan concluded. “I think there are ways to make Star Trek movies like that so that when you go, you don’t know what you’re going to get, you just know that you trust seeing that Starfleet Delta and that you’re going to get a cool movie within that genre.”
Star Trek’s big-screen future in doubt
The future of Star Trek on the big screen remains questionable. Since the box office underperformance of Star Trek Beyond in 2016, Paramount attempted a fourth installment of J.J. Abrams’ reboot series which resulted in numerous director and screenwriter turnovers. The most recent writer attached to Star Trek 4 was Lindsey Anderson Beer (Pet Sematary: Bloodlines), who confirmed that the project was still a go despite stepping away from it after original director Matt Shakman left. Additionally, Quentin Tarantino was developing an R-rated Star Trek movie which fell through in 2020.
All that being said, at least one new Star Trek film is currently moving forward as a Paramount+ exclusive. Said film spins out of the platform’s live-action series Star Trek: Discovery and will focus on Section 31. Michelle Yeoh is attached to reprise her role as Philippa Georgiou.
All four seasons of Star Trek: Lower Decks stream exclusively on Paramount+.
