The future for Star Trek is in a very nebulous place, at least on the big screen. While the small screen iterations of the franchise are going strong, with Star Trek: Discovery being renewed for a third season and Star Trek: Picard being, perhaps, the most eagerly anticipated show to spawn from the Trek universe in years, if not decades, Paramount still doesn’t seem to know how bring Kirk and company back into cinemas.
For a time, there was a legitimate sequel to the reboot series in development, that would have seen S.J. Clarkson at the helm and the return of all the major cast, including Chris Hemsworth’s George Kirk, who’s the father of famed Enterprise captain James Tiberius Kirk.
However, contract disputes and a variety of other issues popped up during the development and the project fell apart, to the dismay of Trekkies the world over. But all hope is not lost, for at the time, there was a rather interesting, and somewhat odd, name that popped up as interested in the franchise: Quentin Tarantino.
Tarantino pitched an idea to the producers and the studio, that they not only took a liking to, but moved into development on, hiring a writer while Tarantino completed his work on Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. And ever since Hollywood hit theaters, everyone’s been wondering what’s next for the auteur director. Though he still hasn’t given us an answer to that, the idea of “Pulp Fiction in space,” which his take on Star Trek has been categorized as, keeps popping up.
Now, adding fuel to this fire is none other than Karl Urban, who plays Leonard “Bones” McCoy, the chief medical officer of the Starship Enterprise in the reboot series. During a recent interview to promote his Amazon show The Boys, Urban stated:
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. 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.
While this is by no means definitive proof that Tarantino’s Star Trek project will see the light of day, hearing such enthusiasm from someone integral to the series is exciting. Perhaps this will lead to some more definitive answers sometime soon and maybe, just maybe, we’ll get to find out what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese on Romulus after all.