Screenwriter Mark L. Smith has opened up about why the Star Trek movie he developed with director Quentin Tarantino ended up on the shelf.
“It was a different thing, but this was such a particular different type of story that Quentin wanted to tell with it that it fit my kind of sensibilities,” Smith told Collider. “So I wrote that, Quentin and I went back and forth, he was gonna do some stuff on it, and then he started worrying about the number, his kind of unofficial number of films. I remember we were talking, and he goes, ‘If I can just wrap my head around the idea that Star Trek could be my last movie, the last thing I ever do. Is this how I want to end it?’ And I think that was the bump he could never get across, so the script is still sitting there on his desk.”
Notably, Tarantino has always been very open about the fact that he planned to retire from filmmaking after making 10 movies — or after turning 60. The 60-year-old writer-director is currently working on his 10th and final film, The Movie Critic. Tarantino previously helmed Reservoir Dogs (1992); Pulp Fiction (1994); Jackie Brown (1997); Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) and Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004), which he considers to be a single film; Death Proof (2007); Inglourious Basterds (2009); Django Unchained (2012); The Hateful Eight (2015); and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019).
Tarantino’s movie would have been the ‘greatest Star Trek film’
Smith added that Tarantino “said a lot of nice things” about his Star Trek script. “I would love for it to happen,” he continued. “It’s just one of those that I can’t ever see happening. But it would be the greatest Star Trek film, not for my writing, but just for what Tarantino was gonna do with it. It was just a balls-out kind of thing.”
The writer went on to discuss the tone of the unproduced sci-fi film. “But I think his vision was just to go hard,” Smith said. “It was a hard R. It was going to be some Pulp Fiction violence. Not a lot of the language, we saved a couple things for just special characters to kind of drop that into the Star Trek world, but it was just really the edginess and the kind of that Tarantino flair, man, that he was bringing to it. It would have been cool.”
The cinematic future of the Trek franchise
It’s currently unclear when Star Trek will return to the big screen. After all, Tarantino’s standalone film isn’t the only entry that may ultimately go unproduced. For years, Paramount Pictures has been developing a sequel to 2016’s Star Trek Beyond (the third film in the studio’s Star Trek reboot series). However, the project has had to contend with various roadblocks and behind-the-scenes changes. Most recently, director Matt Shakman exited Star Trek 4 in favor of helming Marvel Studios’ Fantastic Four reboot.
That said, while the next big-screen entry may be some time off, a new feature film titled Star Trek: Section 31 is currently in active development for the Paramount+ streaming service. Starring Michelle Yeoh, the film spins out of the Paramount+ series Star Trek: Discovery. Principal photography is scheduled to begin next month.
