Reports of Quentin Tarantino’s Star Trek movie have circulated for years, but the film, unfortunately, may never see the light of day. The franchise’s last journey to the big screen was 2016’s Star Trek Beyond, which brought a sort of conclusion to the Chris Pine/Zachary Quinto/Zoe Saldana Star Trek reboot trilogy. Since then, the franchise has seen a major resurgence, but it’s mostly manifested in the form of new TV series, rather than theatrical films.

A few years ago, while numerous potential Star Trek projects were going through different stages of early development, it was revealed that Once Upon a Time in Hollywood director and Hollywood favorite Quentin Tarantino had pitched his own Star Trek film, which would have been very different from past installments. Reports claim that the film would have been inspired by the original Star Trek series episode “A Piece of the Action,” which saw Kirk, Spock and the rest of the Enterprise crew land on a mysterious planet that resembled a fictionalized version of 1920s American gangster culture. Tarantino’s movie would have had a similar angle, with some time travel elements thrown in as well.

Unfortunately for fans of the director’s past work, the Tarantino Star Trek film is unlikely to ever happen now. Years of postponements and a general freeze on Star Trek movie production have left the project in a sort of limbo, with Tarantino himself likely having moved onto other projects. The next, currently unknown Star Trek movie is slated for a release in 2023, but it seems that it won’t be using any of Tarantino’s ideas, which were developed separately from the upcoming fourth Star Trek film.

Of course, the Pulp Fiction director’s Star Trek pitch was always a longshot. A Star Trek movie with such a singular and distinct storyline – similar to the more memorable one-off episodes of the early shows – is a fun idea, but it doesn’t necessarily make sense as a big-budget blockbuster. Star Trek holds brand appeal in the science fiction space, not the gangster space, so making the next big entry in the franchise a whole other genre could have been very confusing for fans, possibly even leading to a failure at the box office.

With Paramount likely looking to reboot the Star Trek film franchise once again in the near future, Tarantino’s pitch will probably never take shape. It’s more likely that the next movie will be more along the lines of recent shows like Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard, as that would be a more stable direction for the franchise to take. Still, it’s hard not to wonder what Tarantino’s Star Trek movie would have looked like if it actually came out.

Next: Every Unmade Quentin Tarantino Movie (And Why They Didn't Happen)

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