S.J. Clarkson is boldly going where no woman has gone before.
The British television director has been tapped to take the helm of the fourth installment of the rebooted ‘Star Trek’ film series. Clarkson is best known to American audiences for her work on episodes on ‘Jessica Jones‘, ‘The Defenders‘, ‘Dexter’, ‘Heroes’, and ‘Orange is the New Black’. This announcement makes her the first woman to direct an installment of the ‘Star Trek’ film series since it was launched with ‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture’ in 1979, though women have directed episodes of the franchise’s various television series.
Clarkson’s ‘Star Trek 4’ will be the first of the two ‘Star Trek’ films to emerge from the newly announced partnership between Paramount and Skydance. According to Variety, it will follow the script by Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne. First announced as ‘Star Trek Beyond’ was arriving in theaters in 2016, this story will reportedly see the return of Chris Hemsworth as Captain Kirk’s father, reprising the role he (briefly) played in J.J. Abrams’ 2009 reboot.
There is at this time some ambiguity regarding which of the rebooted ‘Trek’ cast will return for the fourth film. Though Variety notes that Zachary Quinto is set to reprise his role, it makes no mention of the others. Further The Hollywood Reporter, um, reports that none of the cast is currently under contract. While both Quinto and Chris Pine signed on for a fourth film back in 2015, it’s possible that those contracts may have lapsed while Paramount spent the last two years figuring out what they want to do with ‘Star Trek’. Though even assuming Quinto and Pine are locked in, that still leaves the involvement of Simon Pegg, John Cho, Zoe Saldana, and Karl Urban uncertain.
In addition to ‘Star Trek 4’, work is also underway on an additional ‘Star Trek’ film. This would be the film based on Quentin Tarantino’s surprise pitch, for which a script is being written by Mark L. Smith. Like ‘Star Trek 4’, this will presumably take place in the rebooted Kelvin timeline, though there has been no official word to that effect (nor has there been much official word of any kind on the film). Tarantino himself is rumored to be eyeing the director’s chair, presumably depending upon his schedule and interest in the finished script.
Be sure to check back with ScienceFiction.com for more on these and other upcoming ‘Star Trek’ projects – including the second season of ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ – as it becomes available.
