In 2009, J.J. Abrams relaunched the ‘Star Trek’ franchise on the big screen. The cast and the movie itself was critically acclaimed. The next two sequels had their issues, but still did extremely well. A fourth outing seemed inevitable. But due to one thing or another, it just didn’t get off the ground. Now it looks like the Enterprise will fly again, this time with ‘Fargo’ and ‘Legion’s Noah Hawley at the helm.
Deadline is reporting that Hawley has been tapped to write and direct a fourth chapter, that will bring bring Chris Pine and the rest of his Enterprise crew. One cast member that will be noticeably absent is Anton Yelchin, who sadly passed away in 2016.
Hawley will also produce with his company 26 Keys, alongside Abrams’ Bad Robot label. Hawley is currently producing, writing, and directing the fourth season of ‘Fargo,’ which will begin airing next year.
This movie is separate from the Quentin Tarantino ‘Star Trek’ film. Paramount is still developing that one as well, with ‘The Revenant’s Mark L. Smith writing the most-likely-rated-R spinoff.
The last ‘Star Trek’ movie was ‘Star Trek: Beyond,’ and it was directed by ‘Fast & Furious’ staple Justin Lin. That was in 2016, when the only presence ‘Star Trek’ had was on the big screen. Now, the franchise is back to thriving on the small screen. ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ is going strong, while the ‘Picard’ series is set to premiere early next year. In addition to that, there are other planned spinoffs, as well as shorts and animated adventures all happening. So there is a lot of ‘Trek’ happening right now, despite the absence of a big screen presence.
Hawley seems like a strange choice, but he has quite an imaginative mind. So if he can translate that to a cohesive story, the fourth ‘Trek’ movie will do well. The original fourth movie had a screenplay from J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, and involved time travel, with Chris Hemsworth returning as Kirk’s father. S.J. Clarkson was going to direct, but left the project after Pine and Hemsworth walked after pay disputes. It seems like that won’t happen anymore, instead, Hawley will write a fresh story.
Regardless of what happens, it is a pretty safe bet that ‘Star Trek’ will return to the big screen eventually.
Source: Deadline