The Star Trek franchise experienced a massive cinematic renaissance in 2009 with the arrival of J.J. Abrams’ rebooted timeline. These films, led by Chris Pine as Captain James T. Kirk, successfully modernized the classic sci-fi property for a new generation while securing solid box office returns and critical acclaim. The series seemed unstoppable for nearly a decade, but the release of Star Trek Beyond in 2016 marked the last time the Enterprise graced the big screen. While the property has flourished on television through hit series on Paramount+, nine years have passed without a theatrical release. During this long hiatus, acclaimed showrunner Noah Hawley, known for his work on Legion and Alien: Earth, pitched a unique vision for a film that entered pre-production before being abruptly cancelled.
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“I signed on, you know, after Lucy in the Sky; I thought, ‘Oh, I like this movie thing. I’d like to do another one, but I think maybe I’d like to try something a little bigger,” Hawley said during a recent appearance on the SmartLess podcast. “You know it’s all franchises and I thought, yeah, but 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.”
“The best moment from Star Trek is in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan where Shatner puts on his reading glasses and lowers the shields on the other ship. It costs like 45 cents, right? But it’s like, you see, ‘oh, he’s smarter than Khan’,” Hawley continued, explaining the core philosophy behind his script. “And so I went in, I talked to Paramount, I sold them this original idea. It wasn’t Chris Pine, it wasn’t anything. I wrote it, they said, ‘We love it, let’s prep it.’ We were, you know… 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’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 because they said, ‘Well, how do we know people are going to like it?’ Like, ‘Shouldn’t we do a transition movie from Chris Pine[’s cast], play it safe, you know, whatever?’. And so it kind of went away,” Hawley concluded.
Noah Hawley’s Star Trek Movie Should Still Be Made
Noah Hawley has repeatedly demonstrated a rare ability to step into established sandboxes and build something entirely unique without breaking the original toys. His work on Legion deconstructed the superhero genre with a psychological depth rarely seen in comic book adaptations, while his recent success with Alien: Earth proved he can navigate high-concept sci-fi. In addition, the filmmaker clearly possesses a fundamental understanding of what makes Star Trek distinct from its genre peers. His observation that the franchise is defined by problem-solving rather than military conflict highlights exactly why the property has endured for sixty years.
The decision to scrap this project in favor of a “safer” transition film looks even worse in hindsight. The studio killed a production that was ready to film in Australia based on the fear that audiences might not embrace a new crew, opting instead to wait for the Chris Pine cast. That safe bet never materialized, leaving the theatrical branch of the franchise dormant for nearly a decade. In short, Paramount Pictures effectively traded a guaranteed production from a visionary creator for a hypothetical project that got stuck in development hell. The logic of avoiding risk resulted in the ultimate failure of delivering no product at all.
“I mean, 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. I love it,’” Hawley added in the podcast. With Ellison and Skydance Media now steering the ship at Paramount, the opportunity to revive this lost project is right there. The script is written, the vision is clear, and the filmmaker is still willing to engage. A Star Trek movie that prioritizes intelligence over explosions is the exact kind of bold storytelling the universe deserves.
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