Once he’s completely finished on FX’s Fargo season 4, Noah Hawley will be jumping into his Star Trek feature at Paramount “as soon as possible” he tells Deadline today. We broke back in November how the Fargo and Legion creator was beaming up for the next sequel in the studio’s franchise.
But two interesting takeaways from our conversation are that it’s not necessarily set in stone yet to star the younger cast of characters from the Bad Robot movies, plus it’s probably not going to be connected to the Alex Kurtzman universe that’s being built over at CBS All Access.
“I have my own take on Star Trek,” said Hawley when we asked him if the sequel will feature the most recent film’s cast, “and going back to what I loved about the series Next Generation, when a lot of franchises focus on ‘might makes right’, Star Trek is about exploration and humanity at its best, and diversity and creative problem solving. There’s nothing better than that moment when William Shatner puts on his reading glasses and lowers Khan’s shields. It doesn’t cost anything. But it’s that triumphant feeling about smarting your enemy. For me it’s about to getting to those elements of the show. I don’t necessarily find action in and of itself interesting unless it’s story. So, it’s early days, I’m still talking with Paramount and I have a take and I gotta write a script.”
In regards to connecting with Kurtzman’s build out of the franchise and whether he’ll connect with him Hawley says, “I should. I know Alex. There isn’t a mandate from Paramount to connect it. And on some levels, there’s a bit of the wall, the TV version and the film version.”
“I have my own story and want to make sure as I did with Fargo and Legion that I’m respectful to the underlying material. That I’m not unintentionally changing things that people love or feel passionate about. So, it’s important to do that research as I go,” says the Fargo creator.
As far as Hawley’s TV adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s sci-fi satirical arms race novel Cat’s Cradle, he says, “That one is tough in a post-Disney acquisition age to do what probably is an expensive period Kurt Vonnegut mini-series. So right now, it doesn’t seem likely. But I remain committed to try and bring Vonnegut to the screen in a way that feels meaningful. I just don’t know that I can make this one work in this corporate environment.” Deadline hears separately that the mini-series hasn’t been killed at FX.
As far as Hawley’s feature take on Doctor Doom, which he wrote during the News Corp-Fox owned days, “The phone hasn’t rung,” he says in regards to whether that project is moving forward in the Disney-owned era. “I love the script and what I did with it. Marvel seems to have a plan for everything, it would be great if I fell into that plan. And I haven’t been chasing it, and with Star Trek, it complicates it But if the phone rings, I’m in,” said Hawley.
Hawley’s book Before the Fall which is at Sony remains in limbo in regards to its feature development. Apparently the studio wants to make it a limited series however, “I’m exclusive to FX and I wrote a feature script that I really love, and if I have to turn that into a limited series, I have to write nine more scripts.”
Before the Fall tells the story of a mysterious private-plane crash, starting in Martha’s Vineyard, and focuses on the two survivors, an artist and a little boy, and the lives of the people who died in the crash — from the flight crew to the wealthy media mogul and his family and the coincidences that begin to emerge which suggest the flight’s crash may not have been an accident.
In addition to Star Trek, post-Fargo, another to-do on Hawley’s list is “I have a book I need to finish,” the details of which he kept mum.