You know how there’s going to be a new Star Trek series, but after it’s pilot airs on CBS in 2017 it will only be available on the CBS All Access streaming app? Now we know who will actually be creating that show: Alex Kurtzman and Bryan Fuller.
That’s right – the Transformers/Cowboys & Aliens/Amazing Spider-Man 2/Star Trek/Star Trek Into Darkness guy is teaming up with the Dead Like Me/Pushing Daisies/Hannibal guy. They will co-create whatever this new Star Trek show turns out to be, and Fuller will serve as showrunner (he’s already co-showrunner for Starz’ upcoming adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods).
Bryan Fuller, pictured here as if viewed through a “Wes Anderson whimsy” filter
This might seem like a good news, bad news scenario, mostly because Fuller is so undeniably awesome and Kurtzman is so divisive. However, keep in mind that in addition to the big movies he’s written Kurtzman also co-created the oft-brilliant Fringe and initially-fun Sleepy Hollow. His partnership with Fuller could yet prove to be very interesting. At the very least, he’s brought in someone who knows the franchise far more than he ever will, announcing in a statement:
“Bringing Star Trek back to television means returning it to its roots, and for years those roots flourished under Bryan’s devoted care. His encyclopedic knowledge of Trek canon is surpassed only by his love for Gene Roddenberry’s optimistic future, a vision that continues to guide us as we explore strange new worlds.”
Bringing somebody from the movie side and pairing them with someone from the TV side should help to bridge the gap, and Fuller has wanted this so bad for so long, telling DenOfGeek (via io9) 2 years ago:
I would love to do something on the Reliant. I want Angela Lansbury … Not Lansbury! I want Angela Bassett to be the captain, that’s who I would love to have, you know Captain Angela Bassett and First Officer Rosario Dawson. I would love to do that version of the show and but that’s in the future to be told
Now he can actually try to make that happen, or he could do something totally different. Either way, the Star Trek fan with a surprisingly diverse resume (Pushing Daisies AND Hannibal?) gets his shot at a new Star Trek show, proudly announcing in a statement:
My very first experience of Star Trek is my oldest brother turning off all the lights in the house and flying his model of a D7 Class Klingon Battle Cruiser through the darkened halls. Before seeing a frame of the television series, the Star Trek universe lit my imagination on fire. It is without exaggeration a dream come true to be crafting a brand new iteration of Star Trek with fellow franchise alum Alex Kurtzman and boldly going where no Star Trek series has gone before.
If you’ve never heard the story of how he owes his career to Star Trek, I told it in an earlier article, summarized below:
Fuller’s second credit: The slasher- villain-on-a-space-station DS9 episode “Empok Nor”
Fuller attended the USC School of Cinematic Arts to study to become a director, but he had to drop out due to tuition costs and student loans. At the age of 25 he was a bit lost in life, working as an office temp. He spent some of his spare time watching Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, losing many a date when they saw his various Star Trek toys. As he told Kevin Pollack’s YouTube talk show, “I didn’t even know I wanted to be a writer until I was watching a Deep Space Nine episode and saw the matrix, ‘Oh, this is how you tell a story, and this is where they turn the story.’ So I sat down and I wrote one and submitted it, and then I got invited in to pitch.”
Star Trek used to have an open access policy where anyone, professional or amateur, could submit a spec script, which ultimately gave several now-prominent Hollywood writers their start in the business. It wasn’t always as simple as “Submit script, they like it, you’re hired” though. In Fuller’s case, it came down to sheer persistence, “I would write up pages of pitches, and I would go to the Paramount lot and say that I was a messenger. Then I would find Star Trek offices and slide them under the door. Once I had an in I would prepare these pitch packages and slide them under the door. Every week I would submit 20 pitches before I ever got on staff, and then they said, ‘You should just come on staff.’”
And that’s the guy who will be at least partially responsible for the next TV iteration of Star Trek. Come on, Trekkers – how could you not root for Bryan Fuller? At the very least, based on Pushing Daisies and Hannibal the new Star Trek should look absolutely gorgeous.
Source: StarTrek.com
