Paramount Skydance, helmed by Oracle heir David Ellison, is sweeping through the film and television industry with lightning speed. Besides its potential acquisition of Warner Bros., it's actively pushing forward with the sequel to *Top Gun* and the video game blockbuster *Call of Duty*, and the long-dormant *Star Trek* franchise is also expected to return to the big screen.
Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, who garnered high praise from critics and fans for *Spider-Man: Homecoming* and *Dungeons & Dragons: Rise of the Legend*, have been chosen to helm the new *Star Trek* series. The new film will offer a fresh interpretation of the genre, featuring a completely new cast unrelated to the previous Paramount films and television series.
Goldstein and Daley previously wrote and directed the original Cold War action film *Aid Signal*, starring Ryan Reynolds, for Skydance. It received high praise in early screenings and will premiere on Apple TV next year. Star Trek is the duo's latest endeavor, to be produced by their GoldDay Studios.
Star Trek has been absent from the big screen for nearly a decade. During this time, both A.H. Hawley and Matt Shakman were invited to direct new films, even having sets built, but both missed out on the projects—Hawley turned to FX's *Alien: Earth*, and Shakman took on Marvel's *Fantastic Four: Rise of the Stars*.
Even Quentin Tarantino tried to get involved, suggesting an R-rated Star Trek film set in 1930s America, a time rife with gangsters—clearly referencing *Star Trek: The Originals* Season 2 Episode 17, "A Piece of the Action," where the Enterprise crew visits an Earth-like planet rife with gangster culture.
This potentially groundbreaking Star Trek film ultimately failed to materialize because Tarantino was unwilling to let his career end with Star Trek. He loudly proclaimed he would retire after making ten films, and making *Star Trek* his retirement film seemed too ambitious. Therefore, he suggested others take over, offering only advice.
However, no one dared to take on Quentin's project, so this supposedly greatest *Star Trek* film remained only as a script, quietly sitting in Quentin's desk drawer.
In addition, another prematurely canceled project caused even more commotion.
In an interview last month, Cairo native Adam Driver revealed that he and Steven Soderbergh had conceived a Star Wars story, with the script written by Scott Burns. The plot was set after *Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker*, and the protagonist was still Ben Solo.
The story was reportedly very compelling, and Kathleen Kennedy, then president of Lucasfilm, was also captivated by it. However, Disney disagreed, eager to distance themselves from the past and reopen their studios; they felt Ben Solo shouldn't be alive.
"I enjoyed the creative process; it's one of the coolest scripts I've ever worked on, it's a shame the fans won't see it," Driver said. Fans were furious. During Disney's earnings call, they chartered a plane to fly over Disney's headquarters in Berkshire Hathaway, with a banner trailing behind that read: "Shareholders want Ben Solo."
Posters searching for Ben Solo were also put up on utility poles along Los Angeles streets, listing his disappearance as five years and ten months prior, around the time of Star Wars: Episode IX's release (December 2019).
This fan enthusiasm contrasts sharply with the lukewarm reception of Star Wars: Episode IX. It was precisely this box office failure that led Disney to lose the courage to tell the Skywalker story. Company leaders felt that sticking with the Mandalorian was the safest bet, and The Mandalorian and Gugu is scheduled to premiere next May.
