Noah Hawley says his Star Trek movie still alive; plans to Fargo connection to greater continuity

While Noah Hawley’s Star Trek film continues to be put on pause (along with all other Star Trek films at the moment), it has not been forgotten, least of all by Hawley himself. In fact, not only has the filmmaker recently revealed that his entry in the franchise still has a heartbeat, but that the film would be both an original story and one connected as part of established Trek canon. 

Per Variety's interview posted today: "According to Hawley, his Star Trek treatment is still alive, just in stasis."

Hawley also elaborated on his Trek film, should it get the go-ahead. It would feature new characters, but also offer enough Easter eggs to reward astute fans with clues as to how and where his film fits in with the rest of the Star Trek universe. 

“We’re not doing Kirk and we’re not doing Picard,” Hawley told the media outlet. “It’s a start from scratch that then allows us to do what we did with Fargo, where for the first three hours you go, ‘Oh, it really has nothing to do with the movie,’ and then you find the money. So you reward the audience with a thing that they love.”

This is a trick Hawley used in the first season of his show Fargo. Although the series introduced viewers to a story that initially had no recurring characters from or a readily apparent connection to the Coen Brothers’ acclaimed 1996 film of the same name, one episode included a scene where Stavros Milos (Oliver Platt) stumbles upon a suitcase full of money on the side of a snow-covered road in the middle of nowhere. Fans of the film immediately recognized the suitcase as the one Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi) left to collect later in the movie. Alas, Carl never returns to collect, since his partner in crime, Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare), kills him with an axe and puts his body in a woodchipper.  

Hawley had already finished the script and started the process of hiring his design team when Paramount Pictures’ newly appointed president of motion picture group Emma Watts halted production — apparently to allow the studio a chance to figure out the best way to proceed forward with the franchise. Hawley insists in the new interview that his treatment for a Star Trek movie still lives, but just remains on hold while Watts decides on whether to move forward. 

So, while we wait to learn the fate of the film arm of the franchise (which includes that possible R-rated film directed by Quentin Tarantino), we still have many, many, many (many) new Trek shows to watch in the meantime.