Here's every Star Trek project currently in some stage of development. Though the popularity of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek has proved harder to kill than a particularly tenacious Klingon, the franchise's presence on screens both big and small has fluctuated over the decades. After the relative misfires of Enterprise on TV and Star Trek: Nemesis in theaters, J.J. Abrams arrived to reboot the timeline in 2009, triggering renewed interest and a brand new movie series. It was Star Trek canon, Jim, but not as we know it, since Chris Pine's adventures took place in the Kelvin timeline, seemingly banishing the Prime continuity into a dusty corner.
Then streaming started to catch on, and with Netflix growing in stature, the likes of CBS began making plans for purpose-built platforms of their own. In dire need of content (and lots of it) CBS turned to its most valuable brands, and found Star Trek staring up with eager, willing eyes. After of sustained period in the wilderness, Star Trek fans now find themselves with more material than they know what to do with, as Paramount+ (the current guise of CBS All Access) sets phasers to fun, if your idea of fun is multiple Star Trek shows premiering each year on a subscription-only distribution model.
Under the leadership of Alex Kurtzman, there's a brand new flagship series sailing boldly into the future, animated comedies putting a lighter twist on Starfleet, spinoffs starring bona fide legends, and much more besides. There really is something for everyone (providing you like Star Trek). These are all the Star Trek projects currently in the works, from established shows heading into new seasons to early ideas that are yet to reach warp.
Paramount's true continuation in the primary run of Star Trek TV shows still forges ahead, with season 4 set for release later in 2021. The initial 2 seasons of Star Trek: Discovery were defined by mixed reactions from fans and critics. There were definite high points in terms of characters and visuals, as well as a select handful of standout episodes ("Magic To Make The Sanest Man Go Mad" remains a classic), but Star Trek: Discovery's proximity to the Original Series era proved simply to cumbersome for writers and viewers alike to overcome. For season 3, Star Trek: Discovery shifted 900 years into the future to find a completely untouched sandbox, and the improvements were immediate, with many hailing Star Trek: Discovery's most recent run as its best.
Season 4 will retain the 32nd century setting, introducing the brand new threat of a giant, destructive space cloud wiping out planets for fun. Production is in the finishing stages having been delayed due to COVID-19, but remains on course to beam onto Paramount+ before the year is through. Given how Star Trek: Discovery formed the foundation CBS All Access was built upon, it would be very surprising were the show not renewed for season 5.
Patrick Stewart left his Jean-Luc Picard days behind in less-than-spectacular fashion thanks to 2002's Star Trek: Nemesis, and though the legendary actor had no plans to correct that, the premise for Star Trek: Picard proved too tempting to resist. Airing in early 2020, the first season saw a retired, embittered Picard sacrifice himself to prevent all-out war between organic and synthetic life forms - before being resurrected as an android himself. Season 2 is currently scheduled for 2022, and will involve an altered timeline where Seven of Nine is free of Borg implants. John de Lancie will return as Q, and don't expect the Star Trek: The Next Generation cameos to end there, with Worf (Michael Dorn) and Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) both rumored.
Star Trek: Picard received mixed reactions (that's going to be a common theme, by the way) but a third season has already been green-lit, and is currently being produced back-to-back with the second. Both will see original showrunner Michael Chabon replaced by the duo of Akiva Goldsman and Terry Matalas.
Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard both strike the same modern, serious tone full of moral dilemma and interpersonal drama. Star Trek: Lower Decks does the exact opposite - an animated comedy aimed towards a grown-up audience à la Family Guy, South Park, and Rick & Morty. Following the USS Cerritos, Star Trek: Lower Decks pokes fun at the less glamorous aspects of Starfleet life, from "Second Contact" to routine maintenance, but still finds time to develop its offbeat crew dynamic.
Despite featuring cameos from the likes of Jonathan Frakes (Riker) and John de Lancie (Q), Star Trek: Lower Decks was greeted with lukewarm reactions during its first season, and will be hoping to reverse that trajectory when season 2 premieres on August 12, 2021. Regardless, Star Trek: Lower Decks season 3 is confirmed and currently in production, so prepare to have your Boimlers tickled thrice.
The second animated Star Trek project in Paramount's pipeline is Star Trek: Prodigy, which will also release on Nickelodeon after the initial streaming run in 2021. Very much unlike Star Trek: Lower Decks, Star Trek: Prodigy is suitable for a younger audience, starring a group of rogue teens who happen across an abandoned Starfleet vessel and use the ship as their ticket to a better life. Dal and his companions will be guided by the hologram of Captain Janeway who's once again played by Kate Mulgrew. Set in the Delta Quadrant during 2383, Star Trek: Prodigy employs a cinematic style of CG animation and is already confirmed for a second season.
Star Trek: Discovery season 2 introduced Anson Mount as Christopher Pike, Ethan Peck as Spock, and Rebecca Romijn as Number One, as well a modernized starship Enterprise years before the hallways were dripping in James T. Kirk's testosterone. The new(old)comers were unanimously well-received by fans (even those averse to Star Trek: Discovery's main crew), and talk of a spinoff began almost immediately after Michael Burnham jumped 900 years into the future. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds was officially announced in May 2020 as an old-fashioned, episodic throwback to the glory days of The Original Series. Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers will serve as showrunners. Principle photography wrapped up in July 2021.
Just like Section 31 itself, this Star Trek: Discovery spinoff has been loitering in the shadows quietly, leaving the likes of Burnham, Boimler and Picard to take the headlines. Nevertheless, all reports suggest Alex Kurtzman's mooted Section 31 spinoff is simply a matter of schedules aligning. Starring Michelle Yeoh's Mirror Georgiou and Shazad Latif's Ash Tyler, the series will pick up in the wake of Star Trek: Discovery season 2, where the latter was assigned leadership of Starfleet's clandestine unit after the previous commander was assimilated by a murderous AI program intent on enslaving all human life. Despite traveling to the 32nd century, Georgiou found herself unable to exist in the future (due to the Prime and Mirror universes drifting apart) and was duly sent back by the Guardian of Forever, setting up her Section 31 return. Though filming has yet to start, Alex Kurtzman maintains the project is alive and well.
Another dormant Star Trek project that hasn't yet died completely is the Starfleet Academy series first announced in 2018. Alongside Star Trek: Picard, a young adult TV project based around students at Starfleet Academy was unveiled from Runaways and Gossip Girl duo Stephanie Savage and Josh Schwart. Nothing has emerged since, and with newer shows beating it to air, "Starfleet 90210" looked to have been red shirt-ed out of existence. A recent NYT interview with Alex Kurtzman, however, surprisingly revealed "Phased By The Bell" was still active.
Also clinging on is a Khan spinoff from Nicholas Meyer, writer and director of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek: Wrath of Khan. According to the man himself (via TrekMovie) Meyer was commissioned to write a 3-part miniseries about Khan on the planet Ceti Alpha V, set during his period of exile before returning on the big screen, but CBS changed its streaming strategy to accommodate more long-form storytelling, and interest in reviving Khan soon waned. Neither Kurtzman nor Paramount has commented, but Meyer claims "I don't consider it [the miniseries] dormant." And that's good enough for us to hold out hope.
Heading deeper into remote territory, a comedy based around Michael Dorn's Worf might still happen, Star Trek gods permitting. In the same aforementioned NYT Alex Kurtzman interview, the franchise head honcho revealed that Graham Wagner (The Office, Silicon Valley) pitched a funny and poignant comedy series starring Worf. Kurtzman implies that the idea was too radical for what audiences would accept, but evidently had great admiration for the concept and hinted that Wagner's pitch could resurface in later years, citing the MCU as an example of how to diversify a property effectively.
At this point, Star Trek 4 is sci-fi's own "Chinese Democracy" or The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. When Star Trek's third Kelvin timeline movie, Star Trek: Beyond, failed to set the box office alight, it became unclear whether Chris Pine's crew would return for another adventure. Paramount was hoping to bring Chris Hemsworth back as Kirk's father, George, capitalizing on the actor's Thor success. Then trouble arose, with reports claiming Chris Pine had departed due to a contract dispute, and Hemsworth backing out after being left unimpressed by the script.
Star Trek seemed to put its Chris troubles aside in 2019 when Fargo's Noah Hawley was brought in to write and direct a totally new Star Trek 4, reuniting the Kelvin gang once more. That project died inside a year as Paramount again got cold feet about the future of Star Trek on film. Just when it seemed Star Trek 4 has been jettisoned, WandaVision's Matt Shakman was revealed to be Paramount's latest occupant of the Star Trek 4 captain's chair, with J.J. Abrams returning to produce. Whether it'll actually happen is another matter entirely.
Apparently separate to the Shakman/Abrams effort, Star Trek: Discovery's Kalinda Vazquez will pen another big screen outing for Gene Roddenberry's franchise. Again, there's no guarantee the script will get made, but all signs indicate the project is going ahead at the current time.
Almost as elusive as Star Trek 4 is the touted movie from Quentin Tarantino. Surprising everyone, the Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill director abruptly announced that he had a Star Trek movie in mind, and was in contact with Paramount to make it happen. In 2019, Tarantino was expected to begin work on his Star Trek (which may or may not have been a Kelvin timeline story) following completion of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. When the time came, however, Tarantino admitted that directing Star Trek was looking increasingly unlikely. He did at least reveal a script was written (by Mark L. Smith), and expressed his willingness to produce should Paramount go ahead with his idea, which will be a harder take on the Star Trek format with a strong gangster influence.
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