Years ago Fargo and Legion creator Noah Hawley was developing a Star Trek movie for Paramount Pictures, but it ended up getting scrapped.
Hawley, who is currently working on his Alien: Earth series, is a great storyteller and I was excited to see what he would bring to the Star Trek universe.
Well, it turns out that he has two big stars lined up for the movie! While a guest on Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast, Hawley revealed:
“Yeah, I mean, I was going to make a Star Trek movie with Cate Blanchett and Rami Malek. Could have had that, America.”
Hawley didn’t offer any details as to the characters they would play, but it would’ve been cool to see! He previously mentioned Blanchette, but Malek is a new bit of info.
It was previously explained that the story for his film would have centered around “a virus that wipes out vast parts of the known universe.”
Hawley previously opened up about the project and shared some details on what his vision for Star Trek was, and how he was looking to bring back the smart aspect of the franchise. He explains that his story was less about action and more about exploration and creative problem solving.
“What I love about Star Trek is that it’s not a war story. It’s not a story in which might makes right. It’s a story about exploration. It’s a story about creative problem solving.
“My favorite moment in all of Star Trek is in Wrath of Khan when Kirk puts on his reading glasses to lower Khan’s shields. It’s a brief moment that is so exhilarating because he’s using the best tool he has, which is his mind.
“As much as I like the Chris Pine movies they were mostly about running from one end of the ship to the other to put out a fire, to stop a thing, and then before he could catch his breath he had to do something else.
“They’re much more action movies and what I wanted to get back to was this idea of humanity justifying existence in the universe by showing its best qualities.”
Hawley also said that the film would connect to franchise history, drawing a comparison to how his Fargo series is tied to the 1996 film.
“We’re not doing Kirk and we’re not doing Picard. It’s a start from scratch that then allows us to do what we did with Fargo, where for the first three hours you go, ‘Oh, it really has nothing to do with the movie,’ and then you find the money. So you reward the audience with a thing that they love.”
When talking about how the film project fell apart, Hawley said: “What I found with Star Trek was I got onto the runway and then there was a managerial changeover.
“In retrospect, it’s not that they killed the movie. It’s that I got as far as I did with a wholly original idea, until someone said, ‘Well, wait a minute, what are we even doing with this valuable IP? Just giving it to him to make up a story? That’s not how corporate filmmaking works.’
“So, if the call came in to do a big franchise film again, it would have to come with a sense of, ‘We want you to do your version of it.’“
It’s a shame that this Star Trek project fell apart. It could’ve been a great movie.
