From the Marvel Cinematic Universe to the final frontier: “WandaVision” director Matt Shakman has been tapped by Paramount Pictures and Bad Robot to direct the next “Star Trek” feature film, from a screenplay by Lindsey Beer (“Sierra Burgess Is a Loser”) and Geneva Robertson (“Captain Marvel”). J.J. Abrams is set to produce. The cast, however, remains unclear.
The news comes the same day that Shakman earned an Emmy nomination for helming the inaugural Marvel Studios TV series, one of 23 nods the Disney Plus series earned, including for best limited series. A prolific television director — including “Six Feet Under,” “House,” “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” “Game of Thrones” and “Succession” — he’s directed one previous feature, the 2015 indie thriller “Cut Bank” with Liam Hemsworth and Billy Bob Thornton.
It’s been a long wait for Paramount to get a new “Star Trek” feature out of space dock; the last movie, 2016’s “Star Trek Beyond,” was directed by Justin Lin and earned $343.5 million worldwide — the lowest grosses of the three “Trek” reboots produced by Bad Robot’s Abrams. Those films reset the “Trek” timeline and recast the original series characters with fresh faces, including Chris Pine as James T. Kirk and Zachary Quinto as Spock. In 2018, S.J. Clarkson (“Jessica Jones”) signed on to helm another outing with that cast that would also have starred Chris Hemsworth reprising his brief role as Kirk’s father from 2009’s “Star Trek (which Abrams directed). But Pine and Hemsworth reportedly couldn’t come to terms with Paramount, and the film fell apart.
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Similarly, a much ballyhooed “Trek” movie backed by Quentin Tarantino appears to be stuck deep in the neutral zone, and Paramount put an original “Trek” feature from “Fargo” auteur Noah Hawley on pause last year after Emma Watts took over as president of the Paramount Motion Picture Group. In March, Paramount and Bad Robot also tapped “Fear the Walking Dead” writer Kalinda Vazquez to write a “Star Trek” feature that is separate from the one Shakman is set to direct.
Shakman is represented by UTA, Tod Rubinstein at Morris Yorn and Artists First. Deadline first reported the news of Shakman’s involvement.