Don’t get too excited just yet about a Quentin Tarantino “Star Trek” sequel.
Throwing cold water on previous reports the Oscar-winning director would lead the charge on “Star Trek 4,” series star and writer Simon Pegg has expressed his doubts. In public.
“I don’t think Quentin is going to direct it,” Pegg told ThePlaylist in a recent interview, adding, “Because he’s got his California movie [“Once Upon A Time In Hollywood”] to do and then I think only doing one more film after that. And I doubt, I don’t think he could get around to directing a ‘Star Trek’ in two-three years.”
There are currently three “Star Trek 4” scripts, TheWrap previously reported, speaking to a person familiar with the project — a fact let slip by Spock actor Zachary Quinto in a recent interview with E.T. Canada.
Beyond Tarantino’s script, another one is being developed by Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne — who wrote the first draft for “Star Trek: Beyond” — and another yet by Doug Jung and the aforementioned Pegg, who wrote “Beyond’s” final draft.
“I feel like we are in a state of anticipation,” Quinto told E.T. “All of us are really excited about the idea of working with Quentin on a Trek film, but I know Simon Pegg and Doug Jung … are writing a script and there are another set of writers writing a script. So I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Incidentally, it’s not the first time a “Star Trek” sequel has arisen out of multiple scripts. 1982’s “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” was an amalgam of multiple screenplays. When Nicholas Meyer came aboard to direct, he picked through what he liked out of all of them — including original TV series creator Gene Roddenberry’s — and stitched them together.
“Star Trek 4” is tentatively scheduled for a 2019 release. Paramount has yet to announce a production start date.