You know how you read a story and you think, "Hah, that's crazy - that'll never happen!" and sort of dismiss it?

This isn't happening with Quentin Tarantino's Star Trek. In fact, Deadline reports that both Paramount and JJ Abrams are exceptionally excited about the whole thing and look to be getting the whole thing up and running pretty quickly. The most fascinating thing so far about all of this is that Paramount and Abrams both agreed with Tarantino that the film should come with an R rating, which - up until Star Trek Discovery - was unheard of.

Granted, Star Trek has had some pretty dark episodes through the years - particularly on TNG and DS9 - but it's never been sexually explicit or particularly gory. Well, maybe that scene in The Wrath Of Khan with the ear thingys.

Anyway, Deadline's source has it that the whole thing is seemingly moving "at warp speed" and that Tarantino has met with a number of writers that included Megan Amram, Drew Pearce, Lindsey Beer and Mark L. Smith - with Smith being the frontrunner to land the job of writing the screenplay. Smith previously wrote The Revenant, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy, and also wrote Nimrod Antal's underrated Hitchcockian thriller Vacancy - and, more pointedly, he's working on Overlord, a World War II film that's produced by Abrams' Bad Robot.

Considering that Ryan Reynolds is going to be voice Detective Pikachu in a live-action film and now it looks like we'll have an R-rated Star Trek directed by Quentin Tarantino in the next couple of years, nothing surprises us anymore. The understanding is that Smith - if he's selected - will get cracking on the screenplay whilst Tarantino is working on his as-yet-untitled Manson Murders film, which would most likely see Tarantino's Star Trek beginning production some time in 2019.

On top of all that, Tarantino's Star Trek will - if he keeps to his word - be his last film as a director. Tarantino previously stated that he's retiring after his tenth film, which if Star Trek comes together, will be this one. Going out on a franchise film seems like an odd choice, but since when has Tarantino done anything conventional?

 

 

Via Deadline