Quentin Tarantino Says His 'Star Trek' Movie Will Be 'Pulp Fiction' in Space
Quentin Tarantino is a talker. Everyone knows this. And one of the things he likes to talk a lot about is the possible R-rated "Star Trek" movie he's been working on.
Now, Tarantino is likening it to one of his most famous films, "Pulp Fiction."
In an interview with Deadline about his upcoming film "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," Tarantino addressed his involvement with the project, which has a script by Mark L. Smith ("The Revenant").
First, he blasted Simon Pegg, who co-wrote "Star Trek Beyond" and stars as Scotty in the film series.
"I get annoyed at Simon Pegg. He doesn’t know anything about what’s going on and he keeps making all these comments as if he knows about stuff. One of the comments he said, he’s like, 'Well, look, it’s not going to be Pulp Fiction in space.' Yes, it is!" Tarantino laughed.
"If I do it, that’s exactly what it’ll be. It’ll be 'Pulp Fiction' in space. That 'Pulp Fiction'-y aspect, when I read the script, I felt, I have never read a science fiction movie that has this sh-- in it, ever. There’s no science fiction movie that has this in it. And they said, I know, that’s why we want to make it. It’s, at the very least, unique in that regard."
What that "'Pulp Fiction'-y aspect" is remains unclear. But Tarantino remains cagey about just how involved he'll be in this possible "Star Trek" movie.
"I don’t know if I’ll do it or not," he demurred. "I’ve got to figure it out, but Mark wrote a really cool script. I like it a lot. There’s some things I need to work on but I really, really liked it."
"Star Trek" will have to compete with other projects. Tarantino wrote five episodes of the black-and-white Western TV series headlined by Leonardo DiCaprio's character Rick Dalton in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood."
"I really started loving those half hour ’50s Western scripts. The idea that you could write something like 24 minutes, where there was so much story crammed in those half hour shows, with a real beginning and a middle and an end," he said.
Of course, it'll be nearly impossible getting DiCaprio to sign on to do TV.
"I can’t imagine Leonardo is going to want to do it," Tarantino acknowledged. "Cast somebody else? If he wants to do it that would be great. I’m not planning on that but I have an outline for about three other episodes,"
He added, "So I’ll probably write about three other episodes and then just do it. Direct every episode. They’re a half hour long. I wouldn’t mind doing it for Netflix but I’d want to shoot it on film. Showtime, HBO, Netflix, FX. But I also like the fact that I built up this mythology for Bounty Law and Jake Cahill."