The next Star Trek film has been on a six-year mission to get itself off the ground, but it appears Paramount is finally ready to movie forward. The studio announced that Matt Shakman, the director of WandaVision, has been tapped to direct the next Star Trek movie, which is still early in the works despite years of work having been done on it.
Paramount has been struggling to figure out what to do with the franchise since Star Trek Beyond disappointed at the box office despite being actually pretty good, but it seems to be on track now, with Deadline reporting that the film should start shooting next spring. At one point there were competing screenplays be drafted for the film, and at another Quentin Tarantino was potentially going to direct. But the studio has landed on a screenplay from Lindsey Beer and Geneva Robertson-Dworet, making the first time a Trek film will be written by a woman. It isn’t clear if this replaces the screenplay that Kalinda Vasquez was tapped to write or if that’s another film entirely.
Shakman is insanely hot right now after the success of WandaVision in launching the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Disney+ offerings, and he reportedly had several offers lined up but chose to come on board Star Trek. Hopefully, that means he’s a fan, as the balance between Trek‘s philosophical and societal nature and the demands of a modern blockbuster is hard to get right. While the new report doesn’t mention the cast of the Kelvin Universe (the offshoot timeline that was launched with the modern films) returning, it is expected that this will be a continuation of those films and not another reboot.
Paramount is desperate to get the franchise up and running again after the success of Star Trek shows on Paramount+, where the studio is in the midst of pumping out as much Trek content as possible since it appears to be the platform’s main reason for success. These efforts include the second season of Star Trek: Picard, a new animated show on Nickelodeon, and the upcoming Brave New Worlds, not to mention the series flagship show Discovery‘s ongoing run.
Paramount currently has the film landing in 2023.
