Noah Hawley confirms he’s still writing a Star Trek movie, Legion retired for now

Writer/director Noah Hawley presented the first footage of the fourth season of FX’s Fargo at Television Critic’s Association winter press tour today, and he also confirmed — contrary to recent rumors — that he is indeed still writing a new theatrical Star Trek script.

“It’s exciting because Star Trek has such a special story about exploration and empathy, and diversity and humanity at its best, and creative problem solving,” Hawley told SYFY WIRE about his old school approach to the franchise. “It was never designed at its origin as an action series. It was always about humanity having to fit into the universe, and solve problems through diplomacy and outsmarting their opponents, so I’m excited to get back to that.”

“With Fargo and Star Trek, I’m excited to just tell a great story well,” he continued. “I’m sure when I get into the filmmaking of it, I’m always trying to innovate and finds ways to create emotions in the audience that they don’t expect, so we’ll have to see. I am writing it and I have my own take on it, so we’ll see where it ends up.”

Hawley also confirmed he’s writing Star Trek without any cast attachments, past or current.

When asked if he was privy to the still up-in-the-air Quentin Tarantino Trek script, Hawley said he never discussed it with Paramount. “I went in and chatted with my friends at Paramount about what they were looking for, and then some ideas I had. We developed a more specific idea that they seem to like.”

Hawley didn’t have a timeframe for when he would turn in the Trek script, but he’s currently shooting Season 4 of Fargo in Chicago with Chris Rock.

He did confirm that the just completed three season run of Legion on FX has been put to bed for him creatively.

“What I like is when the story is the length of the show,” Hawley said of the series having a complete run. “But I have every faith that if I called [FX president John] Landgraf if I came up with another story, we’d do another. It was a great experiment of what a genre show could be. But it’s nice to have a concise statement and then move on.”

Fargo Season 4 premieres on FX Sunday, Apr. 19 at 10 p.m.