Studio Would Have To Be Insane Not To Make Quentin Tarantino’s Star Trek According To Karl Urban

While filmmaker Quentin Tarantino‘s insistence that he will retire after his next (tenth) feature film has got most people assuming Star Trek is off the table, a script for his “Pulp Fiction in Space” take on the characters apparently does exist, and actor Karl Urban, who has appeared in the three most recent Star Trek movies, says that if Tarantino wants to do it, the studio would be crazy not to let him. The topic came up during an interview in support of The Boys, the Amazon mega-hit on which Urban appears as Billy Butcher.

During a conversation with HuffPost, Urban expressed his enthusiasm for the Tarantino project, which may be the Star Trek movie with the best chance of getting made at present, since contract negotiations have fallen through for Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine, leaving Star Trek 4 to be pulled from Paramount’s development slate. The Tarantino film would still require reworking contracts, but the project being so much different might help to change the conversations a little bit.

“This is a project that I have no information about, really. I haven’t read a script for it, but I understand the basic concept of it,” Urban said in his interview. “I think Quentin Tarantino doing that film would be phenomenal. He is definitely one of the most exciting filmmakers that’s currently working and if he has an interest in making a Star Trek film, I think the studio would be insane not to let him do that.”

It is still uncertain whether Tarantino even wants to direct a Star Trek film. He pitched the idea for the film to producer JJ Abrams. Paramount Pictures put the idea ot a writers’ room and Mark L. Smith has completed a script. At last check-in, Tarantino still needed to review that script. Paramount hoped to have Tarantino direct the film himself, but there were scheduling concerns. With Once Upon a Time in Hollywood complete, the film could be Tarantino’s next project — but only if he were to decide to do it.

“I guess I do have a loophole, [if] the idea was to throw a loophole into it,” he recently explained. “Which would be [to go], ‘Uhhh, I guess Star Trek doesn’t count. I can do Star Trek … but naturally, I would end on an original.’ But the idea of doing 10 isn’t to come up with a loophole. I actually think, if I was going to do Star Trek, I should commit to it. It’s my last movie. There should be nothing left-handed about it. I don’t know if I’m going to do that, but that might happen.”

There’s little known about Tarantino’s plans for Star Trek other than that the film, should he direct, will carry an R rating. There hasn’t even been confirmation about whether the stars of The Kelvin Timeline Star Trek Trilogy will return, though they seem hopeful.

“I mean, it’s been a broad conversation that we’ve been having for a while in terms of what’s the future of the franchise,” Zachary Quinto has said. “It’s in process so I don’t know exactly what to say other than there’s no plans for a movie happening at this moment.”

Stick to ComicBook.com for updates on the will-they-or-won’t-they around this project.