Tarantino’s Star Trek Movie – Update

By Reggie's Take on June 12, 2019

Director Quentin Tarantino who’s been hard at work on his upcoming film Once Upon A Time In Hollywood made comments during a press junket on his possible Star Trek movie.

Tarantino has said in the past that once he directs his tenth movie he plans on retiring. “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” when released to theaters on July 26th will be his ninth. In a recent interview with Empire magazine the director was asked about the potential Star Trek movie he pitched to J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot in 2017. In 2018 Tarantino’s idea was fleshed out and screenwriter Mark L. Smith wrote a rough draft.

In the newest issue of Empire Magazine, Tarantino confirmed that his new Star Trek film would be swear-laden and if he were to step behind the camera and direct it would also be R-rated. Saying…

“Oh yeah! It’s an R-rated movie. If I do it, it’ll be R-rated. There’s a script that exists for it now. I need to weigh in on it, but I haven’t been able to do that yet.”

Tarantino comments sound as if the director is still interested in taking the next steps in developing his Star Trek movie further. Despite the directors comments little is known, but as recently as this January, Paramount was still very open to the idea of a Tarantino Trek film.

There have been different reports as to what characters might appear. Several cast members from J.J. Abrams Kelvin timeline movies believe they would be involved, but cast members from Star Trek’s prime timeline have expressed interest in Tarantino’s film, including Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, even William Shatner.

Reggie’s Take:
As cool as a possible Star Trek film directed by Quentin Tarantino sounds I’m remaining cautious. If you read what he told Empire Magazine the director did say, “If I do it”.

It’s possible that Tarantino could just oversee the completion of the screenplay for his Star Trek movie and not direct. If Paramount is okay with an R-rated Star Trek film it could be heavily dependent on Tarantino directing the film. If Tarantino only wants to help write the script and be an executive producer, but not direct then Paramount may have second thoughts.

The idea of a Quentin Tarantino directed Star Trek movie could be the lift that Paramount needs with its Star Trek film franchise, but there’s always that possibility it could upset some of the hard-core Trek fans. Even though I enjoyed the three most recent Star Trek films not all of the long time fans were as enthused.