Quentin Tarantino has long been rumored to be making his own Star Trek film as part of his acclaimed career, much to audiences’ surprise. However, as reported by Comic Book, Tarantino has no intentions of pursuing his reported Star Trek movie.
Tarantino has been adamant about his retirement from filmmaking after his tenth feature film, which leaves no room for a potential addition to the beloved Star Trek franchise. In an appearance on Bill Maher’s podcast, Tarantino spoke about how the rumors eluded him, and that despite never giving any confirmation himself, people ran with the idea of this film.
“It’s never going to happen. There’s been so much misinformation about what it was going to be—nothing but misinformation.”
Because of his lack of presence on social media like Facebook and Instagram, he never had a chance to clear. He added that if someone reports the information, based on rumors, it’s still going to gain traction.
“The thing is, they can say anything. My point being, though, they write it in a show biz magazine and then that gets picked up in 140 pieces because I’m not shutting that down because I’m not connected.”
He compared the Star Trek rumors to those of The Movie Critic, which was his rumored tenth and final film, but ended up being scrapped.
Screenwriter Mark L. Smith, best known for co-writing The Revenant, adds that he has spoken to Tarantino about the project, suggesting that at some time, he was connected. In an interview with Collider, he spoke about the screenplay sitting on Tarantino’s desk, and said it would’ve been the “greatest Star Trek film, not for my writing, but just for what Tarantino was gonna do with it.”
He added one of the reasons Tarantino possibly walked away came after he began worrying about it being his tenth and final film.
“I remember we were talking, and he goes, ‘If I can just wrap my head around the idea that Star Trek could be my last movie, the last thing I ever do. Is this how I want to end it?’ And I think that was the bump he could never get across.”
Tarantino’s Final Film Remains Undecided
Tarantino, one of the most acclaimed auteurs of this era, has an onslaught of critically acclaimed films. Beginning in 1992 with Reservoir Dogs, continuing with Pulp Fiction, which earned him his first Academy Award win, and the celebrated Kill Bill franchise. He earned Academy Award wins in four other feature films, including Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained, The Hateful Eight, and most recently, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
He has been set on his career ending after his tenth feature film was released. Although he has technically released ten already, he counts Kill Bill: Volume 1 and Kill Bill: Volume 2 as one film. The rumors surrounding his potential final film have been circulating since Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood was released in 2019, with The Movie Critic being labeled as “one of the greatest movies never made” by Sony. He has previously spoken of his fear of making a poor final film, which has left audiences to wonder if his final film is ever going to be made.
Since 2019, he has written a novelization of his most recent film, called Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: A Novel in 2021. In 2022, he published Cinema Speculation, a nonfiction novel about American films in the ’70s that influenced him. Nothing definitive has been said of Tarantino’s final film, but due to his previous repertoire, it’s bound to be acclaimed, whenever Tarantino decides to make it and whatever it ends up being.