A New 'Star Trek' Movie Has Been Given To 'Andor' Director Toby Haynes

According to Paramount, this film will set out to expand the franchise’s universe

When anything is in doubt, Paramount falls back where no one else can have fallen back before. Even as the main Star Trek Kelvin movies traverse development hell on its fourth movie, and Michelle Yeoh’s Georgiou-starring Section 31 starting filming for Paramount+, it seems the studio wants even more Trek movies, recruiting Toby Haynes to direct and Seth Grahame-Smith to write one that will expand the universe. And yes, it’s also a Bad Robot production.

The project is a Kelvin timeline-set origin story that takes place decades before the 2009 film that began the “new” film universe. Otherwise the actual plot hasn’t been revealed. Not even what origins are being explored. The main fourth film remains in development, keeping alive a series whose last film, Star Trek Beyond, released in 2016.

Haynes was not only the main director on the Star Wars series Andor, encompassing the first three and last three episodes of the first season, but the five episode span of Doctor Who that covers the two-part closer of series 5, the Christmas special “A Christmas Carol”, and the two-part series 6 opener during Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor tenure. Most pertinently of all, he’s already kind of had Star Trek practice, having directed the highly-acclaimed and awarded Black Mirror episode USS Callister, which explored darker themes on a virtual reality program with the title starship. The episode won four of its 7 Emmy nominations including Outstanding TV Movie. Haynes has said he literally “begged” them to give him the job, terrified it would go to a bigger name, explaining:

“I’m probably a bigger Star Trek fan than [Black Mirror creator] Charlie [Brooker] is. As a kid, I was a super-geek for all things sci-fi on TV, particularly Doctor Who. I knew the original ‘60s Star Trek show very well. I was such a fan that I’m kind of reverential about it, so I was happy to play fast and loose with this version. I knew stuff that Charlie didn’t know, which is why we put Michaela Coel in a red outfit. Michaela had to be in a red outfit because she’s the first of the crew to get killed.”

Grahame-Smith started out as an author of such books as Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, going on to write the former’s film adaptation. He also wrote Dark Shadows, produced 2017’s It, co-wrote The Lego Batman Movie, and has story credit on Beetlejuice 2.

Sources: Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter