Star Trek 4 Writer Describes Writers' Room For Quentin Tarantino's Version

Star Trek 4 has seen several iterations while gestating at Paramount Pictures, beginning as a time travel movie teaming Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) with his father, George (Chris Hemsworth). It has since been passed between various writers and directors to develop in different directions. Screenwriter Lindsey Anderson Beer had been working on the latest version of Star Trek 4 before departing to focus her attention on Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, the prequel horror film now streaming on Paramount+. Before that, she had participated in a writers' room to develop a Star Trek movie pitch separate from Star Trek 4 that came from director Quentin Tarantino. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Beer described working in Tarantino's room.

"We got in there and he started with, 'So what are your guys' ideas for a movie?' and I think I went first," Beer recalled. "So he listened to us patiently and just kind of nodded his head, and then he took out his notebook and started talking for 20 minutes with lines of dialogue and passionate ideas that he'd already written. It wasn't really a story yet; they were just random thoughts he had on a movie, but it was so passionate and so wonderful. And I laughed to myself and thought, 'Well, why didn't we start with that?'"

Paramount eventually chose Mark L. Smith to write Tarantino's Star Trek. Tarantino has said that his Star Trek would have been R-rated and like Pulp Fiction in space and was inspired by the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "A Piece of the Action," where Captain Kirk and Spock visit a 1920s-style gangster planet.

What's next for Star Trek 4?

While Beer didn't get that job, Tarantino thought she did good work. That led to her current relationship with Bad Robot and working on Star Trek 4. She talked about leaving Star Trek 4 during a recent interview with ComicBook.com.

"I wrote a couple drafts of that before I had to leave for Pet Sematary. And it was originally, the seed of the idea came from J.J. himself, who's such a creatively generous person, and it was amazing collaborating with him," Beer said. "And it was very sad to leave our Zoom sessions to focus on [Pet Sematary: Bloodlines], but this was my baby, so I had to prioritize."

While she has stepped away from Star Trek 4, she did tell Collider that, despite losing director Matt Shakman to Marvel's Fantastic Four reboot, the next Star Trek movie is still moving forward. "It is, it's still on the tracks," Beer says. "I love that project, and it was another one that I had to hop off of to direct this movie, and that was a hard thing to do. But I love that everybody involved with that project."

When will Star Trek 4 be released?

Paramount had scheduled Star Trek 4 for release in 2023 with Shakman directing. After Shakman dropped out, Paramount dropped the movie from its release schedule.

Paramount first announced Star Trek 4 ahead of Star Trek Beyond's theatrical release in 2016. J.D. Payne and Patrick McCay were writing, and Hemsworth was to return as George Kirk. SJ Clarkson signed onto the project as director, with J.J. Abrams producing. However, Hemsworth and Pine dropped out during contract negotiations, halting those plans.

After that came reports of Tarantino's Star Trek. Paramount also started developing a Star Trek movie with Noah Hawley. Paramount eventually backed off of both projects, deciding instead to hire Star Trek: Discovery writer Kalinda Vasquez to write a script for Star Trek 4. Paramount later replaced Vasquez with Beer, Robertson-Dworet, and Shakman's version.