Paramount may have publicly denied the rumor that they’d given up on making Star Trek movies, but none of the various projects in development seem like they’ll be heading to the big screen anytime soon. Quentin Tarantino’s R-rated effort has always been the least likely to happen given the sheer volume of ideas he comes up with that never get made, while the rebooted Kelvin timeline looks to be stuck in stasis after Beyond posted disappointing box office numbers.
Meanwhile, Noah Hawley was set to reinvent the franchise once again with an all-new crew that would take the concept back to basis, but that’s also been placed on the back burner as the studio figures out how to move forward with one of their most popular brands. Luckily, though, the small screen arm of Star Trek is in better shape than it’s been in for a long time, and that looks set to continue for at least a few more years.
In a recent interview, executive producer Alex Kurtzman revealed that he’s got the future mapped out until 2027, which should be good news for fans fearing the worst after it was rumored recently that a number of Star Trek shows could be facing the chopping block.
“Heather Kadin and Aaron Baiers, who work with me at Secret Hideout, we literally just got off a call before this with the network mapping out with us through 2027. When I say that, it’s not like it’s set in stone, it’s just, ‘okay here’s a plan, here’s what we’re looking, here’s how the different shows are going to drop’. Consider the that it takes a year from start of production to airing, so you have to plan way way in advance to get these things done, and you have to stay on top of the zeitgeist and make sure what you’re doing is relevant. I’m going to say in all honesty there are years and years left on Discovery. I think that because, first of all, you know Star Trek, in general, has a long history of going seven seasons minimum, and we just jumped into the future, and in a way, it’s not that it’s a brand new show, but it’s a whole new set of variables with a whole new set of ideas and stories. I don’t think we limit ourselves to thinking, ‘Oh we’re capped at this place’. I’ll tell you that when the show starts to feel too stale to us, we’ll be rallying to stop it. But for now, it doesn’t feel like we are running into a shortage of stories.”
As well as many more years of Discovery, at least one more season of Picard and the continuations of Short Treks and Lower Decks, Discovery spinoff Strange New Worlds and kid-centric animated series Prodigy are also aiming to debut next year. The big screen adventures of the Enterprise crew might be shrouded in mystery for the time being, but with six TV shows either returning or premiering in the near future, on the whole, Star Trek looks to be in rude health.