Simon Kinberg in Talks to Produce ‘Star Trek’ Movie Franchise for Paramount

Longtime X-Men producer Simon Kinberg is beaming up to a new franchise.

The multi-hyphenate is in talks to produce a new Star Trek feature for Paramount Pictures, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. If all goes well, the door would open to him taking active creative roles on the rest of the storied franchise’s film side. Alex Kurtzman and Akiva Goldsman are the main creative producers on Star Trek‘s television side.

The project Kinberg would step into is already in very active development. Toby Haynes, who directed episodes of of the Star Wars series Andor, is on board to direct the new feature, with Seth Grahame-Smith writing the script. The project is said to be set decades before the events of the 2009 movie that was directed J.J. Abrams, likely around modern times. It is said to involve the creation of the Starfleet and humankind’s first contact with alien life.

Abrams remains involved with the new project as a producer. There is no release date for the feature, but the studio has signaled that it would like a 2025 opening. The machinations of the franchise take place against the backdrop of a potential sale of Paramount, which could find itself under the ownership of Sony or Skydance.

There hasn’t been a Star Trek movie since Star Trek Beyond, which was released in 2016. In recent years, Trek primarily has lived on the small screen, boldly finding new life thanks to numerous streaming shows on Paramount+, among them Star Trek Discovery, Picard and Strange New Worlds. Efforts to relaunch the film side, including reuniting the Abrams Trek cast that included Chris Pine, Zoe Saldana and Simon Pegg, among others, have ended up stranded on rocky alien shores. Paramount is also understood to still be developing a fourth Trek to feature that cast that is being described as the final chapter for this crew.

Kinberg rose to prominence thanks to his writing and producing work on Fox’s X-Men franchise, over whose course he took creative control and even made his directorial debut with Dark Phoenix. He has has also worked movies ranging from Murder on the Orient Express to The Martian, as well as select Star Wars projects. And he worked with Grahame-Smith before, as co-screenwriter and executive producer on his adaptation of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Puck was the first to report on Kinberg being in negotiations to reboot the Star Trek movie franchise.