Paramount Plus has become the streaming home for Star Trek, releasing six shows as part of the franchise since 2017, with a seventh premiering next year. But while there has been a glut of Star Trek TV, the USS Enterprise hasn’t appeared on the big screen since Justin Lin’s 2016 Star Trek Beyond.
That could change soon. Skydance Media CEO David Ellison said at a press event celebrating the $8 billion Paramount-Skydance merger that he intends to double down on theatrical-release movies, including ones based on Star Trek, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The studio’s co-film chief Josh Greenstein named Star Trek, Transformers, and World War Z as franchises that will be a priority for Paramount-Skydance’s plan to release 15 films a year.
And don’t expect another Star Trek: Section 31; Paramount Plus chief Cindy Holland said, “Streaming movies are not a priority for me” in her role overseeing the streaming business.
There have been plenty of Star Trek film projects in development over the past decade that never went anywhere. Quentin Tarantino worked on a script that Simon Pegg, who co-wrote Star Trek Beyond, called “batshit crazy.” Madame Web director S.J. Clarkson was reportedly tapped to do a sequel to Star Trek Beyond, which would have made her the first woman to direct a Star Trek film.
She was replaced by Matt Shakman, who left the project to make The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Before he made Alien: Earth, Noah Hawley was in talks to make a wholly original Star Trek film that was scuttled in 2020. The chaos led Chris Pine, who played Captain James Kirk in three Star Trek movies, to call the franchise cursed.
The Pine series was set in an alternate universe created by time travel which allowed the filmmakers to ignore decades of Star Trek canon. But the new films will likely take a different approach. New Paramount-Skydance chief creative officer Dana Goldberg said the Star Trek TV and film teams will be working together to build the brand.
That could mean rounding up the Picard crew for another The Next Generation film, Strange New Worlds’ Paul Wesley playing James T. Kirk on the big screen, or going into the far future to follow the events of Discovery. Whatever direction the studio decides to go, hopefully something actually makes it to theaters.
