There was a point in Quentin Tarantino‘s career as a filmmaker began a few years ago when he developed an R-rated film Star Trek Film for Paramount Pictures. That would have been an R-rated film Star Trek Project that would have been very interesting.

It would have been very entertaining to see what Tarantino would do with the Star Trek franchise, especially with its unique filmmaking style, but it just wasn’t meant to be.

We already know that the project was abandoned, but the director was recently asked about it as a guest on Bill Maher’s podcast and confirmed that the film will never be made and that nothing that has come out about the film is true.

Tarantino said, “That’s never going to happen. There was so much misinformation about what it was going to be – nothing but misinformation. I live in a special zone and part of that zone is that I’m not on Instagram and Facebook and I’m not in this constant dialogue with the world about what’s going on in my life.”

“So if you’re Joe Schlomoka and you’re out there as a reporter and you hear that Quentin wants to do a Star Trek movie or a movie called ‘The Movie Critic’ or something, it’s a bit like the guy who wrote the Howard Hughes biography that turned out to be a fraud.

“The thing is, they can say anything. What I’m saying is, they can write it in a showbiz magazine and then 140 articles will be published about it, because I’m not stopping it, because I have no connections.”

But screenwriter Mark L. Smith (Revenant And The boys in the boat) wrote a screenplay based on a story idea by Tarantino, which suggests that at least at one point he seriously considered directing Star Trekk-project.

Smith said: “Quentin and I were thinking about it. He wanted to do some things on it, and then he started to worry about the number, his unofficial number of films, so to speak.

“I remember we were talking and he said, ‘If I could just get used to the idea that Star Trek could be my last film, the last thing I ever do. Do I want it to end like that?’ And I think that was the sticking point that he never got across, so the script is still on his desk.”

Smith continued, “I know he’s said a lot of nice things about it. I would love for it to happen. It’s just one of those things that I can’t imagine ever happening.

“But it was going to be the greatest Star Trek movie, not because of my script, but just because of what Tarantino would do with it. It was just a tough thing.”

Smith declined to give any details about the story, saying, “I can’t say anything about the story. He would kill me.” However, he did reveal that it would have been a “Hard R” film with the same level of violence that Tarantino is known for.

He said: “But I think his vision was to just go hard. It was a hard R. There was going to be Pulp Fiction-style violence. Not a lot of language, we saved a few things for specific characters to kind of bring that into the Star Trek world, but he was really going for the edginess and that kind of Tarantino flair, man, that he brought in there. That would have been cool.”

Smith had previously spoken about the film and given some insight into the story: “We wanted ‘The Midnight Sky’ to be set in the future, but not so far in the future that anyone would feel it couldn’t happen.”

“I listened to a lot of different TED talks about which planets to choose and how the ship would have to work.

“When they were flying through space, I let them go into exclusion zones: they lose communication for a few weeks, so any messages they got from home were at least a few weeks behind. Sure, I cheated in some areas, but nothing major. It wasn’t like anyone was beamed up!”

Smith also explained that he was attracted to the series’ “deep” characters: “The relationships all felt real and I could identify with them.” He then revealed that Captain Kirk would be in the film and that they had a lot of fun playing the character:

“I love Picard. And Kirk is always so funny. Tarantino and I had so much fun with him because Kirk is just William Shatner, you know? It’s like, you’re not sure who is who, so you can go with it! Because you see Chris Pine and he plays Kirk, but he also plays a little bit of William Shatner.”

Tarantino had previously said that he also wanted to bring some pulp fiction elements into the series. He also said, “I don’t know if I’m going to do it or not. I’m still figuring it out, but Mark wrote a really cool script. I really like it. There are some things I still need to work on, but I really, really liked it.”

It was previously reported that Tarantino’s film “is based on an episode of the classic Star Trek series, set largely on Earth in a 1930s gangster setting.” This is most likely the news about the film that is not true.

I understand why this film isn’t being made, but I would definitely have liked to see Tarantino make it.