Quentin Tarantino Says His R-Rated STAR TREK Movie is "Never Going To Happen"
There was a point in Quentin Tarantino’s filmmaking career a few years ago when he was developing an R-rated Star Trek movie for Paramount Pictures. This would’ve been an R-rated Star Trek project, which would’ve been very interesting.
It would’ve been a lot of fun to see what Tarantino would do with the Star Trek franchise, especially with his unique filmmaking style, but it just wasn’t meant to be.
We already know that the project has been scrapped, but the director was recently asked about it while a guest on Bill Maher's podcast and confirmed that the movie is never going to get made and that nothing that has come out about the movie has been true.
Tarantino said: "It's never going to happen. There's been so much misinformation about what it was going to be—nothing but misinformation. I live in a special zone and part of my zone is because I'm not on Instagram and Facebook, I'm not creating this constant dialogue with the world with what's going on with my life.”
"Consequently, if you're Joe Schlomoka and you're some transient reporter of some kind, if you hear Quentin is going to make a Star Trek movie or a make a movie called The Movie Critic, or any f--king thing, it's a little bit like that guy who wrote the Howard Hughes biography that ended up being a hoax.
“The thing is, they can say anything. My point being though, they write it in a show biz magazine and then that gets picked up in 140 pieces because I'm not shutting that down because I'm not connected."
But, screenwriter Mark L. Smith (Revenant and The Boys in the Boat) did write a script based on a story idea by Tarantino, suggesting he was, at least at one point, strongly considering directing the Star Trek project.
Smith said: "Quentin and I went back and forth; he was gonna do some stuff on it, and then he started worrying about the number, his kind of unofficial number of films.
“I remember we were talking, and he goes, 'If I can just wrap my head around the idea that Star Trek could be my last movie, the last thing I ever do. Is this how I want to end it?' And I think that was the bump he could never get across, so the script is still sitting there on his desk."
Smith continued, "I know he said a lot of nice things about it. I would love for it to happen. It's just one of those things that I can't ever see happening.
“But it would be the greatest 'Star Trek' film, not for my writing, but just for what Tarantino was gonna do with it. It was just a balls-out kind of thing."
Smith wouldn’t offer any details on the story, saying: "I can't say anything about the story. He would kill me." But, he did reveal that it would've been a "Hard R" movie with the same level of violence that Tarantino is known for making.
He said: "But I think his vision was just to go hard. It was a hard R. It was going to be some Pulp Fiction violence. Not a lot of the language, we saved a couple things for just special characters to kind of drop that into the Star Trek world, but it was just really the edginess and the kind of that Tarantino flair, man, that he was bringing to it. It would have been cool."
Smith previously talked about the film and shared some insight on the story, saying: "We wanted [The Midnight Sky] to be in the future, but not so far in the future that anyone would feel that it couldn’t be happening.
“I went through a lot of different TED talks as far as the planets that would be chosen, and the way the ship would have to operate.
“As they’re going through space, I kept it where they go into blackout zones: they lose communication for a few weeks, so all the messages they were getting from home were at least a couple of weeks behind. Sure, I cheated in a few areas, but nothing major. It wasn’t like anyone was being beamed up!”
Smith also explained that he was drawn to the "deep" characters in the series, saying, “The relationships all felt real, and something I could relate to.” He then went on to reveal that Captain Kirk would be in the film and that they had so much fun playing with the character:
“I love Picard. And Kirk is always just so fun. Tarantino and I had so much fun with him, because Kirk is just William Shatner, y’know? It’s like: you’re not sure who is who, so you can kinda lean into that! Because you watch Chris Pine and he’s playing Kirk, but he’s also playing William Shatner a touch.”
Tarantino previously said that he also wanted to bring some Pulp Fiction elements into the series as well. He also said: “I don’t know if I’ll do it or not. I’ve got to figure it out, but Mark wrote a really cool script. I like it a lot. There’s some things I need to work on but I really, really liked it.”
It was previously reported that Tarantino’s movie “is based on an episode of the classic Star Trek series that takes place largely earthbound in a 1930s gangster setting.” This is most likely the news about the film that isn’t true.
I get why this movie isn’t going to happen, but I sure would’ve loved to see Tarantino make it.