Simon Pegg calls Tarantino's unreleased R-rated film ‘batsh*t crazy'

News.com.au

2 days ago

Turns out we almost got a Quentin Tarantino-directed Star Trek movie, and according to one of the franchise's stars, Simon Pegg, it was exactly as bonkers as you'd expect.
Pegg has revealed just how off-the-wall Tarantino's abandoned Star Trek script really was, and according to him, it was exactly the kind of chaos you'd expect from the filmmaker behind Pulp Fiction (1994) and Kill Bill (2003-4).
Appearing at a fan expo in Boston over the weekend, the actor who plays Scotty in the rebooted franchise, said he was given a breakdown of Tarantino's vision by producers J.J. Abrams and Lindsey Weber.
Pegg told fans the screenplay Tarantino pitched to J.J. back in December 2017 was 'what we call in the business batsh*t crazy.'
'It was everything you would expect a Quentin Tarantino Star Trek script to be,' he said.
'I think it would have been such an incredible sort of curio to see Star Trek through his lens.
'I don't know how it would have gone over with the fans, but it certainly would have been an interesting thing.'
The project was separate from the planned sequel to Star Trek Beyond, and Paramount quickly launched development on it.
The expectation was that it would be a hard R-rated film - gritty, violent, and unlike anything the franchise had seen before.
Screenwriter Mark L. Smith, known for The Revenant (2015) and Twisters (2024), was brought on board to turn Tarantino's concept into a script.
In a 2023 interview with Collider, Smith praised just how unique it would have been.
'It would've been the greatest Star Trek film,' he said.
'Not for my writing, but just for what Tarantino was gonna do with it. It was just a balls-out kind of thing.'
While Smith wouldn't give away any specific plot details: 'I can't say anything about the story, he would kill me' - he did confirm that it was a typical Tarantino bold take.
'I think his vision was just to go hard. It was a hard R. It was going to be some Pulp Fiction violence.
'It was just really the edginess and the kind of that Tarantino flair, man, that he was bringing to it. It would have been cool.'
The setting alone was wildly unconventional for a Trek film. Most of it was going to take place on Earth in a 1930s gangster setting.
It's believed Tarantino was drawing from the 1968 Star Trek: The Original Series episode 'A Piece of the Action', where the crew encounters an alien culture imitating Chicago mobsters.
Knowing Tarantino, this version would've also featured ruthless shootouts and fedoras.
Smith compared what the film might have done for the Star Trek to how Taika Waititi reimagined Thor with Ragnarok (2017).
'I liked it because I think it's different, but the way that Ragnarok changed things. It was like suddenly it had a different feel for the Marvel stuff.
'It was like, 'That's fun. That's different,'' he said.
'And I guess Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) to some level, but it was just like a different vibe and that's what I thought that it could bring to Star Trek - just a different feel.'
Despite the excitement behind the scenes, the project never left the drawing table, and according to Smith, the reason came down to Tarantino's famous filmmaking rule: ten movies, then he's done.
'Quentin and I went back and forth, he was gonna do some stuff on it, and then he started worrying about the number, his kind of unofficial number of films,' Smith recalled.
'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, so the script is still sitting there on his desk.'
The studio pivoted to developing a new prequel movie instead, with Andor (2022) director Toby Haynes and script written by Dark Shado ws(2012)writer Seth Grahame-Smith - but that version was also shelved.
Now, Paramount reportedly intends to make a final chapter to wrap up the Chris Pine-led Star Trek films, with The Flight Attendant (2020)'s Steve Yockey writing the script.
Tarantino, meanwhile, still hasn't announced what his tenth and final film will be.
It was expected to be The Movie Critic, but reports in 2024 confirmed he had also scrapped that idea.
So the big question remains - what will Tarantino actually end his career on?
So far he's completed nine films: Reservoir Dogs (1992), P ulp Fiction (1994), Jackie Brown (1997), Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2003-4: which he counts as one), Death Proof (2007), Inglourious Basterds (2009), Django Unchained (2012), The Hateful Eight (2015), and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019).
While his work is undeniably brilliant, it's hard not to feel a pang of sadness knowing that somewhere in Hollywood, a batsh*t crazy, R-rated Star Trek script is gathering dust, likely never to be made. And it might have been a masterpiece.
Still, fans remain hopeful:
'Maybe that's what's needed right now... To give cinema a wired boost since there's nothing good in theatres,' one Instagram user wrote.
'Someone finally has an original idea for Star Trek. They def should make it instead of this reboot,' begged another.