As the long-running Star Trek franchise continues to thrive on the small screen, it's big screen future remains uncertain -- at least, for now.

While the most recent Star Trek franchise was never a huge box office performer for Paramount, the film's performed well enough to at least result in a trilogy, with a fourth film having even gone as far as to secure a director before things seemingly fell apart. Still, fans of the series found themselves quite perplexed by the studio's plans for the franchise when it was announced back in 2017 that Quentin Tarantino was working on a Star Trek film that was separate from Star Trek 4. And now, while little news has been offered up on that project since, the legendary director has indicated in a new interview with Empire that it's far from dead.

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Tarantino's take on Star Trek went to the writers room in December 2017, and per the latest reports, the current screenplay is said to have been penned by Mark L. Smith (The Revenant). So, with a completed script, why isn't the project moving ahead just yet? Well, the script needs to be fine-tuned by Tarantino, and he simply hasn't had the time to do so yet. "There’s a script that exists for it now, I need to weigh in on it, but haven’t been able to do that yet."

Next to nothing is known about the director's vision for the iconic sci-fi franchise, other than it won't shy away from "the horrors of space" and that it may-or-may-not feature the cast of the last three Star Trek films. However, there is one minor detail that Tarantino was willing to confirm -- should he direct it, this new Star Trek feature will, indeed, be rated-R (as previously speculated.) "Oh yeah! It’s an R-rated move. If I do it, it’ll be R-rated."

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In the meantime, fans can see Tarantino's next film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, when it opens in theaters everywhere on August 19.

(via Trek Movie)