Paramount Pictures hired Star Trek: Discovery writer Kalinda Vasquez to pen a new Star Trek movie script, but it t sounds as if Nicholas Meyer, director of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, is also trying to make his way back into the Star Trek universe. After pitching television series focusing on Khan Noonien Singh’s days stranded on Ceti Alpha V, Meyer tells Trek Movie that he and Steven-Charles Jaffe, whom he worked with producing Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, set about creating a pitch document for a new Star Trek movie. Meyer says he’s brought the pitch to Alex Kurtzman, J.J. Abrams, and Emma Watts at Paramount Pictures.
“My partner Steven-Charles Jaffe and I wrote a whole treatment and plan for a Star Trek feature film,” Meyer says. “We didn’t write a whole script. We wrote a very detailed treatment and a whole pitch doc with illustrations. It’s a very comprehensive thing. And we first we took it to Alex Kurtzman, then we took it to J.J. [Abrams], and then we took it to Emma Watts at Paramount.”
Meyer remained guarded about details. He did state the film could lead to more stories, perhaps a series that follows up on its events. He also clarified that the film is not a reworking of his Khan series pitch, but does fill a gap in the franchise’s timeline.
“It was a detailed proposal for what could have been a film, or it could have been a series, or it could have been a film leading to a series or a series leading to a film… It could be a series of films. Yeah, absolutely,” Meyer says. “This was an independent piece of the Star Trek universe based on holes in the chronology, which would allow for the insertion of original material.”
Meyer’s proposal would be the latest in a series of ideas to get Star Trek’s film franchise back up and running. The original idea for Star Trek 4, involving time travel and Kirk’s dad, was still on the table not that long ago, according to reports. There’s also Noah Hawley’s pitch, which was close ot production before Paramount pushed pause. Quentin Tarantino also pitched an idea to Paramount, reportedly based on the Gangster-themed episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. The studio handed that idea off to Mark L. Smith to turn into a screenplay.