Tarantino’s STAR TREK Film Will Be R Rated

One of the big question to come out of the surprise news this week about Quentin Tarantino actually having a Star Trek film in development at Paramount, that if this project came about, what would the potential rating of the film be? Tarantino is known for his films receiving a hard R-rating for their language and violence, a far cry from the franchise’s much more family (and more importantly, box office) friendly PG and PG-13 ratings.

Deadline has an answer to that today, reporting that Tarantino “required [the film] to be R rated, and Paramount and [producer JJ] Abrams agreed to that condition.”

Honestly, that Paramount conceded to a potential R-rated Star Trek film does not come as much of a surprise. The current television iteration of the franchise available on the CBS All Access streaming service, Star Trek: Discovery, is pushing boundaries on what have been traditional limits on the series. Even without that precedent being set, they knew whom they were working with and probably wouldn’t even have given this much thought if they weren’t willing to concede the rating.

Additionally, Deadline reports that Tarantino has already met with the writers room established for the project and spent several hours bouncing around ideas, trying to hone in on story specifics. Reportedly the three writers who met with Tarantino are Mark L Smith, who wrote The Reveant, Lindsey Beer, who has Godzilla Vs Kong and the upcoming Masters Of The Universe reboot on his resume and Drew Pearce, who wrote Iron Man 3 and Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. All three are good and while Beer and Pearce lend some geek weight, Deadline states that they hear that Smith is in the lead for getting the actual script assignment.

Once a writer is chosen, they will get to work on the project while Tarantino films his next film, his untitled story about 1969 Los Angeles at the time of the Sharon Tate/Manson Family murders.