Paramount has decided to halt on making the next Star Trek movie. Noah Hawley had been attached to write and direct what would be the 14th film of the franchise.
The studio’s decision comes five weeks after they named Emma Watts, former film executive from 20th Century Fox, to be the president of Paramount. Watts had decided to pause the progress for Star Trek in order to gain more clarity in which direction the movie will go. There had also been a handful of rumors that the filmmaker left the project but that hasn’t been the case yet. Furthermore, the project itself will not be ditched, she had confirmed.
Paramount had also been developing another Star Trek project with Quentin Tarantino producing and Mark L. Smith writing. The studio also tried to launch another Star Trek movie back in 2018 with S.J. Clarkson directing and Chris Hemsworth in one of the roles.
In Hawley’s version, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban and Zoe Saldana are expected to return to the U.S.S. Enterprise. J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot would produce, alongside Hawley’s 26 Keys production banner.
Hawley has credits that extend to being the executive producer on Fargo and Legion, and making his feature film directorial debut Lucy in the Sky that stars Natalie Portman and Jon Hamm.
The original TV series launched in 1966 and the first movie Star Trek: The Motion Picture opened in 1979 and became the fourth-highest-grossing film of the year. Paramount has had a long history with the franchise, rebooting it in 2009 with Abrams directing Star Trek, followed by Into Darkness in 2013 and Beyond in 2016.