New Star Trek Movie Trilogy Planned, But It's Already in Trouble

[AlphaKing]

It appears that another Star Trek trilogy, totally separate from what Paramount has going on with Star Trek 4 and Quentin Tarantino's movie, is in the works. However, a legal battle may get in the way of it actually happening. Director Nicholas Meyer, best known for his work on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, reveals that he was hired by CBS to write a trilogy of standalone movies for their CBS All Access streaming service.

We'll start with the good news here. Nicholas Meyer, the man responsible for what is widely considered to be the best Star Trek movie ever made, was hired by CBS to write a new trilogy of movies. That much is certain. The filmmaker revealed this during a recent visit at the University of California, Irvine where he took part in a discussion about Shakespeare and Star Trek. Here's what he had to say about it.

    "I was hired to write a stand-alone Star Trek-related trilogy. I can't discuss or I'd have to kill you. I was writing it for CBS [All] Access... but at the moment CBS is at a war with Paramount/Viacom."

Now we get to the bad news. CBS owns the TV rights to the franchise, which they are currently putting to good use for Star Trek Discovery, with season 2 now in production. Paramount, on the other hand, holds the movie rights. Since Nicholas Meyer is, or possibly was, working on a trilogy of what would essentially be TV movies for a streaming service, there is some room for legal friction there. There is also the matter of a potential Viacom and CBS merger, which is being floated and would allow for the movie and TV universe to co-exist once again. They have been separate since J.J. Abrams' reboot was released in 2009.

There is a lot to unpack in terms of the legal issues, but that seems to be getting in the way of what could be an exciting series of movies from one of the franchise's most beloved filmmakers. Nicholas Meyer teased last year that he was working on something not related to Discovery saying, "One thing that has nothing to do with Discovery is that I am working on another Star Trek project, but I can't discuss that either." At the time, it was assumed this would be another series and there was a rumor going around that it would be a Wrath of Khan prequel series. Perhaps it would actually be a trilogy of prequel movies?

Paramount is neck-deep in Star Trek movies right now. They recently hired S.J. Clarkson to helm Star Trek 4, marking the first time for a female director within the franchise. There is also Quentin Tarantino's reportedly R-rated movie, which is being by written Mark L. Smith (The Revenant) currently, but there are few details beyond that at the moment. Assuming this legal issue can be sorted out, we could have as many as five new Star Trek movies over the coming years, even if that may be a big if. It's a good time to be a Trekkie. This news comes to us courtesy of Trek Core.