Quentin Tarantino On What His Star Trek Will be Like

Right now film lovers await Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. His most recent movie—his ninth—has already garnered some rave reviews after bowing at the Cannes Film Festival. All Tarantino films are big events—he takes his time, releasing a fresh movie every few years. The giddy, retro Once Upon a Time in Hollywood features Leonardo DiCaprio as a fading star in 1969 Hollywood and positions him, and his longtime stunt double (played by Brad Pitt, no less) in the house next door to Sharon Tate (played by Margot Robbie). Tate has the terrible distinction of being the most famous victim of Charlie Manson and his demented “Family.” The moment just this basic outline of Tarantino’s new film became clear, everyone was curious how the notoriously fearless director would handle one of the most infamous murders in American history.

While we’ll have to wait until Hollywood bows on July 26 to find out, Tarantino is already discussing another potentially wild project. We’ve known for a while now that he’s had a Star Trek script he’s been developing. While all eyes have been on Tarantino’s star-studded Hollywood, it sounds as if his take on Trek has a good chance of happening. What’s more, the auteur has told Empire Magazine that a Tarantino Star Trek would indeed be rated R. The Empire issue will be available later this week.

“Oh yeah!” Tarantino tells Empire. “It’s an R-rated movie. If I do it, it’ll be R-rated.”

Tarantino’s Trek script was written by Mark L. Smith (he co-wrote The Revenant), based on a pitch Tarantino laid out for J.J. Abrams’ production company Bad Robot back in 2017. Tarantino will next give Smith his notes on the script, and from there, one hopes, his Star Trek will continue in development later this year.

So who will be in Tarantino’s Star Trek and what it’s about? We don’t know. Current Trek cast members, like Karl Urban, have heard the pitch and have responded very enthusiastically. Speaking at the Trekonderoga convention last year, Urban said, “I know a little bit about what that is, and it’s bananas. You shouldn’t worry that it is going to be full of obscenity and stuff,” he said. “He wants an R-rating to really make those beats of consequence land. If it’s not PG, if someone gets sucked out into space, which we have all seen before, we might see them get disemboweled first…It allows some breadth…gives him some leeway to do that. To me, that was always one of the things I loved about what DeForest Kelley did. He would actually capture the horror of space. That look in his eyes of sheer terror always struck me when I was a kid.”

Featured image: Leonardo DiCaprio and Quentin Tarantino in Columbia Pictures “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” Courtesy Sony Pictures.