Quentin Tarantino’s version of Star Trek 4 had a “fun” writers’ room and the acclaimed director had “passionate ideas” according to Pet Sematary: Bloodlines writer-director Lindsay Anderson Beer. In 2017, Tarantino pitched a sequel to Star Trek Beyond to producer J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot, and Quentin assembled a writer’s room to flesh out his movie idea about Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and the USS Enterprise in a 1920s gangster time travel adventure. Tarantino’s writer’s room included Beer and The Revenant screenwriter Mark L. Smith.
In an interview with THR to promote Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, Lindsay Anderson Beer described her experience in Quentin Tarantino’s Star Trek 4 writers’ room. While she didn’t reveal details of Tarantino’s story for his abandoned Star Trek movie, it’s still a fascinating look at what it’s like to work with the legendary auteur. Read her quote below:
I also started being asked to help people crack IP, including Star Trek, which started as the Tarantino writers’ room. Tarantino wanted to do a Star Trek room, which was the most fun room I’ve ever done.
We got in there and he started with, “So what are your guys’ ideas for a movie?” and I think I went first. So he listened to us patiently and just kind of nodded his head, and then he took out his notebook and started talking for 20 minutes with lines of dialogue and passionate ideas that he’d already written. It wasn’t really a story yet; they were just random thoughts he had on a movie, but it was so passionate and so wonderful. And I laughed to myself and thought, “Well, why didn’t we start with that?” There was a funny moment where he just stopped in the middle of that room and turned to me and said, “Lindsey, you’re really good at this.” And getting that compliment from somebody whose career I admire so much meant a lot, obviously.
So that room was also the beginning of a very strong relationship with Bad Robot, and I’ve been brought in a few times on different iterations of Trek, most recently on Star Trek 4.
