<\/p>\n
The only thing weirder than the fact that Disney hasn\u2019t been able to get a\u00a0Star Wars\u00a0movie into theaters for the better part of six years is that Paramount and Star Trek\u00a0are lapping them comfortably at this point, currently shooting for a full decade of inexplicable franchise inactivity. Not even the combined forces of Chris Pine<\/a>, Quentin Tarantino<\/a>, Noah Hawley<\/a>, and every other big-name creative who\u2019s all but begged Paramount to let them take the Enterprise for a spin since 2016 has been able to counter the distaste apparently left by Star Trek Beyond<\/a>\u2018s under-performance, to the point that the new bosses at Paramount indicated lately<\/a> that they were trashing the Kelvin Timeline as a whole, and setting their phasers for \u201cReboot\u2026 again.\u201d<\/p>\n Today,\u00a0THR\u00a0reports<\/a> that the studio has made moves on that score, tapping John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein to write and direct a new\u00a0Trek\u00a0movie, disconnected from all previous continuity. Which is funny, to our eyes, in the sense that Daley and Goldstein\u2019s last movie together, 2023\u2019s Dungeons And Dragons: Honor Among Thieves<\/a>, feels like exactly the kind of film Paramount seems deeply disinterested in making in this space: A funny, shockingly smart action-adventure that nevertheless utterly cratered at the box office. (The duo has since made one other movie together, an Apple-set Ryan Reynolds\/Kenneth Branagh feature called\u00a0Mayday, that\u2019s yet to secure a release date.)<\/p>\n Besides the general oddness of hiring two of Pine\u2019s recent collaborators to make the movie that will finally, officially, shunt him out of the captain\u2019s chair he\u2019s ostensibly held for 16 years at this point, the basic idea of Daley and Goldstein making a Star Trek\u00a0movie isn\u2019t offensive or anything; the pair make fun, breezy films, and Honor Among Thieves\u00a0showed they can work pretty well within genre lines. That being said, it also doesn\u2019t dispel the general vibe that Paramount doesn\u2019t know what the hell it\u2019s doing with this franchise (outside of TV, where things are still going at least semi-smooth, with the upcoming arrival of Holly Hunter\u2019s Star Trek: Starfleet Academy), and has just slapped the self-destruct button yet again and called it good.<\/p>\n