Star Trek Beyond served as a slight change of direction for the movie franchise, as J.J. Abrams vacated the director’s chair for Star Wars and Justin Lin stepped in to helm the third entry in the rebooted series, which offered more old-fashioned, fan-pleasing thrills. It turns out that before Lin was attached to the production though, British filmmaker Joe Cornish was initially courted for the project but ultimately turned the opportunity down.
Cornish – best known for directing cult sci-fi flick Attack the Block and co-writing The Adventures of Tintin and Ant-Man – revealed the news to Entertainment Weekly. As many directors have done before him, he explained that he decided to make the difficult decision to turn the offer down over fears that he would lose a lot of creative freedom on such a big blockbuster.
“I talked to J.J. about that pretty early on, but then decided I wasn’t ready for it, because it’s a big old franchise, and I’ve had friends who’ve gone straight from indie movies into big blockbusters and have come out the other end a little bit bruised and battered, and not necessarily feeling it’s their film. I love the idea, but then eventually I thought that if I had the opportunity to do something of scale, that it would be cooler to do my own thing.”
Though Cornish didn’t end up going boldly into the Trek franchise, Star Trek 4 was set to be helmed by another Brit. S.J. Clarkson was due to be the franchise’s first female director, though the movie appears to have stalled now since both Chris Pine and Chris Hemsworth vacated the project over contractual disagreements. Although, Pine has since suggested that he’s still up for more appearances as Captain Kirk.
Plus, Paramount remains committed to bringing fresh filmmakers into the Trek universe. There’s that much-discussed Quentin Tarantino Star Trek movie in development and as far as we understand, it would feature the cast of the Kelvin timeline films, just with Tarantino’s own unique slant on the material.
While the Star Trek movie franchise might not be going anywhere, it’s still running strong on TV, where you can catch Star Trek: Discovery Thursdays on CBS All Access. And so far, it’s shaping up to be a great season.