Noah Hawley’s Star Trek Movie on Hold, Quentin Tarantino’s Version Still in Development

Noah Hawley’s Star Trek movie has reportedly been put on hold at Paramount Pictures; however, the Quentin Tarantino Star Trek may still be moving forward. THR reports that Paramount’s new motion picture group president, Emma Watts, has decided that of the multiple Star Trek film projects in development at the studio, Hawley’s (Fargo, Legion) was the one to put on hold. Word has it that the coronavirus pandemic may be largely responsible for Watts icing Hawley’s Star Trek, as the plot reportedly centered “around a virus that wipes out vast parts of the known universe.”

Obviously, after COVID-19 has ravaged the world, shattered economies, killed hundreds of thousands of people, and forever shattered societal norms… People may not want to engage (pun) with a Star Trek movie that plays that same kind of event out on a cosmic scale. Of course, without being able to confirm the details of Hawley’s planned story for the film, it’s hard to know the reasoning behind the stall. Perhaps Watts simply thinks that a Star Trek movie with Tarantino’s name on it would be a better bet at filling seats (and important calculation, as studios try to rekindle the American theater industry.

There seems to be some confusion among reports about whether Paramount had several different Star Trek films in development (Hawley, Tarantino – another J.J. Abrams film), or if Hawley and Tarantino simply had competing visions for the same Star Trek 4 film, set in J.J. Abrams’ “Kelvin Timeline.” One of those questions is obsolete now that Hawley is out; however, we still need confirmation of whether Tarantino is indeed the official next Star Trek movie director – and then, if he has reign to make an R-rated movie with Chris Pine and the Kelvin Timeline cast.

For his part, Quentin Tarantino has previously revealed that he would inherit Star Trek‘s Abrams-verse and its Kelvin Timeline, just to take a wrecking ball to it!

“Now, I still don’t quite understand, and JJ [Abrams] can’t explain it to me, and my editor has tried to explain it to me and I still don’t get it…” Tarantino said in a podcast interview. “Something happened in the first movie that now kind of wiped the slate clean. I don’t buy that. I don’t like it. I don’t appreciate it. I don’t — f*** that…I want the whole series to have happened, it just hasn’t happened yet.”

We’ll keep you updated on the status of the next Star Trek movie – as well as all things Star Trek on the small screen, as well.