The TV side of the Star Trek franchise is back in working order thanks to shows like Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks and Prodigy, but we haven’t been treated to a movie since 2016’s Star Trek Beyond. That finally looks to be changing due to a Star Trek movie bringing back the crew of the Kevin timeline’s Enterprise being scheduled for late 2023, but for a while, it looked like a separate movie being developed by Noah Hawley could have moved forward. To that end, apparently the Fargo and Legion showrunner was looking to have his Star Trek movie star Cate Blanchett.
This information comes from Star Wars Insider and Fangoria contributor Brandon Wainderdi, who said on Twitter that he attended an event where Noah Hawley was speaking and signing books. During the event, he apparently let slip that he was planning to bring Cate Blanchett onto his Star Trek movie, although he didn’t divulge any details about what her role would have been.
Although Cate Blanchett has spent a fair amount of time in the fantasy realm through movies like the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Thor: Ragnarok, aside from the upcoming Borderlands film adaptation, she hasn’t done any deep diving into the sci-fi genre. Being the lead actor in a Star Trek movie could have rectified that, and Noah Hawley has said that his feature would have featured new characters rather than bring back Chris Pine’s James Kirk and the rest of the gang we’ve followed along with on the big screen since 2009’s Star Trek. So right off the bat, it’s easy enough to envision Blanchett playing the captain of a Starfleet vessel, or really any kind of authoritative figure.
Alas, Noah Hawley’s Star Trek movie didn’t get the greenlight from Paramount Pictures, so unless the writer/director is will to disclose more details about what he had planned, we’ll likely never know how Cate Blanchett fit into the picture. At least Hawley’s Star Trek movie isn’t the only Star Trek Beyond follow-up project collecting dust in this franchise. It joins the movie Quentin Tarantino was working on with The Revenant writer Mark L. Smith that was inspired by The Original Series’ gangster-themed episode “A Piece of the Action,” as well as the movie S.J. Clarkson was once on board to direct that would have seen Chris Pine’s Kirk meeting his father, Chris Hemsworth’s George Kirk, who died shortly after his son was born in the Kelvin timeline.
Now the plan is for the unofficially-titled Star Trek 4 to be directed by WandaVision’s Matt Shakman, who’s working off a script that’s being rewritten by Josh Friedman and Cameron Squires. Paramount Pictures announced that Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldaña, Karl Urban, John Cho and Simon Pegg were in talks for Star Trek 4, though this reportedly came as a surprise to the actors, as they hadn’t even known this movie has made significant progress forward. Star Trek 4 is slated for December 22, 2023.
As for Noah Hawley and Cate Blanchett, the former is still working on Fargo and also has the Alien series coming up, while the latter is lending her voice to Guillermo del Toro’s stop-motion Pinocchio movie and will play Lilith in the aforementioned Borderlands. Keep your eyes peeled on CinemaBlend for more updates on Star Trek 4’s progress and news on other upcoming movies.