We don’t usually report on rumors without official announcements from the studio, but when the source of said rumor is Sir Patrick Stewart, we can make an exception. The legendary actor was on the Happy Sad Confused Podcast plugging his memoir Make It So, when he revealed that he had received a phone call the night before, and was going to receive a script for a new movie centered around Jean-Luc Picard.
The podcast was just released, but was recorded in November. Since then, there has been no official statement from Paramount on a Star Trek: Picard movie.
If it does happen, will it have a cinematic release, or go direct to streaming, like Star Trek: Section 31 with Michelle Yeoh (which enters production this month) will? Also, will it serve as a backdoor pilot for the anticipated, though equally unannounced Star Trek: Legacy series? Until it becomes official, we won’t be able to answer those questions.
Meanwhile, Deadline reported today that JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot is in production on a prequel to 2009’s reboot film Star Trek. It is set “decades before” the events of that movie. No word on if this means it will take place in the Kelvin Timeline, which began 23 years before that movie’s main story, or the Prime Timeline, which the rest of Star Trek is set in.
Toby Haynes is set to direct, with Seth Grahame-Smith writing the script. Bad Robot is also still producing a fourth Star Trek film set after 2016’s Star Trek Beyond.
No word on cast, or tentative release dates, for either movie.