When asked if he'd ever want to make a Star Trek movie, Quentin Tarantino said that it was worth having a meeting about. Well, it looks like more than a meeting is about to take place, as a writers room is assembling to bring the Hateful Eight director's idea of a Trek movie out of drydock and into the final frontier. Should this script be good enough, it sounds like Tarantino himself might even climb aboard and direct the fourth entry of the film franchise rebooted by J.J. Abrams in 2009.
The report comes to us from Deadline, stating that while Tarantino is currently busying himself with getting his ninth movie off the ground at Sony, he's supposedly come up with a crackerjack idea for a Star Trek film to follow last year's Justin Lin-directed Star Trek Beyond. No word has come on who will be in this writer's room, but it will be their task to speak with the Pulp Fiction writer/director, take his concept for the latest Trek adventure and turn it into a ship worth sailing into production.
Obviously the most interesting part of this announcement is, of course, the fact that Quentin Tarantino might finally wet his beak with a big studio franchise. After years of hearing the story of how Tarantino wanted to bring his own approach to the world of James Bond, with Pierce Brosnan starring in his hypothetical version of Casino Royale, it's big news to hear the man may finally land himself a plum gig with a big budget franchise. Though it does bring up some questions about what we've been told about the project so far.
Looking back as recently as last year, there was an announcement that Star Trek 4 was going to involve a crossing of paths between Chris Pine's Captain James T. Kirk and his father, Chris Hemsworth's George Kirk. Whether or not the time travel plot was going to be the legitimate plot for the next Star Trek film, or if it was simply a placeholder, it seems like that story's on its way out (though we can't say that with 100% certainty yet). If Quentin Tarantino is being brought in to draft his own idea for production, the studio must have heard something out of their pitch meeting that somehow wowed them more than bringing Thor himself back to the fold.
But wanting to direct a franchise doesn't always mean it'd be a good fit, which probably has some folks wondering just how good of an idea it is to let Quentin Tarantino direct a Star Trek film. Well, considering he understands how the film franchise differs from the original series structure, as well as the fact that he's suggested taking an original episode like "City on the Edge of Forever" and turning it into a full feature film, we'd say he's off to a good start. The man's proven his classic Trek cred before, especially thanks to some of the dialogue he snuck into Crimson Tide's re-writes, and we're extremely curious to see what his new take on the classic franchise entails.
For now, we'll have to wait for further details out of Quentin Tarantino's potential Star Trek 4. As of now, the film has no dedicated release date, but it has been rumored for release in 2019 or 2020. The latter release window feels more probable, seeing as Quentin Tarantino's latest film is being slotted into an August 9, 2019 debut. When we have more information, we'll report it as soon as possible.
