I can’t think of a better way to end the crazy year of 2017 than with more news on Quentin Tarantino’s Star Trek movie, something that would have been unfathomable just weeks ago. It was earlier this month that we first learned of Tarantino’s pitch to J.J. Abrams and Paramount to direct the movie, which they loved and began setting into motion right away. A writer’s room was set up with The Revenant screenwriter Mark L. Smith emerging as the frontrunner to pen the script, and now Deadline confirms this insane gig is his.
Smith is a known commodity to Abrams as he’s also the writer behind Bad Robot’s upcoming WWII film, Overlord. He was part of Tarantino’s writers room that included Lindsey Beer (Chaos Walking), and Drew Pearce (Iron Man 3) and Megan Amram (The Good Place). Just the thought of a Tarantino writers room is bonkers to me. That Tarantino’s not writing the script himself is still disappointing, but since he’s already mandated it to be R-rated I suspect he’ll also do some rewrites.
There’s still no word on who would star in this movie, whether it will take place in the same universe as Abrams’ movies, or if will be an expansion of Tarantino’s favorite Star Trek episodes like “City on the Edge of Forever.”
While Smith gets cracking on the script Tarantino will be busy working on his Manson-era film which opens in August 2019.
