The one actual project currently confirmed to be in production is a new feature film, which seems the most likely to actually get made of all the attempts over the last decade. The project is being written and directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, who have offered some intriguing hints at the direction they hope to take the franchise.

Training Crimson Trek?

Back in July the pair talked about how they were writing the script for their Star Trek movie and this week while out promoting their new Cold War action comedy Mayday, Daley and Goldstein gave Inverse an update, saying their Star Trek story takes place “almost in real time” and focuses on how even the best institutions can be undone by a little corruption. They also said they compare their premise to two specific films, the 2001 crime thriller Training Day and the 1995 submarine action movie Crimson Tide. Each is about an experienced commanding officer and a younger second-in-command who is more by-the-book working together on a tight timeline to take down a big threat, plus a third act twist. And both happen to star Denzel Washington, although the pair didn’t mention if they had a role in mind for the actor.

Daley told Inverse:

“I would say it’s really kind of a look at the institution of Starfleet and any institution as a whole that has existed for a long time and what that does. I think the portrayal of Starfleet and the people that work within it have always been generally idealized versions of what the future could be. And while this [script] isn’t a cynical or nihilistic take on it, I think it does acknowledge that there are some bad apples in every institution that can have a strong voice and can really make an impact on that institution and everything it stands for.”

The near-real-time format is a unique premise for a Trek movie. While there isn’t an episode or movie quite like Training Day or Crimson Tide where you have a grizzled vet and a younger subordinate paired directly and put in conflict, Star Trek: Picard season 3 showrunner Terry Matalas compared Picard and Riker’s arc in the opening four episodes of that season to Crimson Tide as well, and things did come to a head in the third episode.

Starfleet in question

The “bad apple in Starfleet” element is perhaps less unique, as we could fill the Federation Day Parade with “badmirals” who betrayed their uniform or were otherwise jerks. It was explored most recently on the big screen in Star Trek: Into Darkness when Alexander Marcus warped past the line to try to leverage Khan to do his bidding, and wasn’t afraid to toss the Enterprise aside to make it happen. Three films before that in Star Trek: Insurrection, Admiral John Dougherty pushed for the Ba’ku to be relocated so the Federation could harness the regenerative power of their planet. And three films before that in Star Trek VI… well, you get my drift. (It has also provided storylines and arcs on various Trek TV series.)

In any event, while Trek fans may be able to point to some similarities among the hundreds of hours of material already produced in the franchise, Daley and Goldstein are hoping scores of people who have never seen any Trek before will make it out to the theater. Goldstein said,

“I mean, look, we don’t want to rely on fandom. We don’t want to just hope that there’s enough fans of the original [TOS] or The Next Generation or whatever who will turn out for this. We want to just make a great movie that lives in the world that people are familiar with — some people are familiar with — and that others will discover. And then, with good fortune, we launch a new franchise into existence.”

Peter Weller as Admiral Marcus in Star Trek Into Darkness

Theatric spectacle

Goldstein and Daley also told Inverse they hope to justify the movie’s presence in theaters with enough spectacle to separate it from the shows and movies already available on Paramount+. At San Diego ComicCon, they told the audience they thought people would be surprised by where they hoped to take the franchise, and seemed to cement that this movie would not be about Kirk, Spock, or Bones and may not be on the Enterprise, and would be set “a little farther into the future than we’ve been before.” We’ve seen into the 31st century with Discovery and Starfleet Academy, so that would mean this could be set past those series, or perhaps they meant further than the typical 23rd and 24th century settings most of the franchise is set in.

The Star Trek movie hasn’t been officially greenlit yet, but executives from Paramount did cite the film as being in development on stage at Cinemacon in April. But even projects that seem like they’re on a glide path to production aren’t happening until they happen, as we’ve learned several times since 2016’s Star Trek: Beyond premiered with an allegedly-approved sequel in tow.