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The rumors appear to be rumors no longer: Quentin Tarantino’s Star Trek pitch has achieved warp five speeds, with potential writers screened and Paramount seemingly agreeing to the director’s requirement that the film be R-rated.

A few days after the initial buzz of Tarantino’s positive meetings with J.J. Abrams and Paramount (and Teresa exploring the reasons why this creative mash-up gives us pause), Deadline Hollywood today has this report:

Tarantino met for hours in a writers room with Mark L. Smith, Lindsey Beer, and Drew Pearce. They kicked around ideas and one of them will get the job. I’m hearing the frontrunner is Smith, who wrote The Revenant. The film will most certainly go where no Star Trek has gone before: Tarantino has required it to be R rated, and Paramount and Abrams agreed to that condition.

It’s not 100% clear if Tarantino would direct the movie himself or be involved in some kind of producing role, but the implication is that he’d direct—which is why the over-17-and-up rating was on the table:

That rating was crucially important to Tarantino, who hopes to direct this Star Trek and who has helmed R rated films his entire career. Imagine how this could open storytelling lanes, or even what the banter on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise might be, if you conjure up memories of the conversations between Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta in Pulp Fiction, or the banter at the diner between robbers before the heist gone wrong that triggered the action in Reservoir Dogs.

Honestly, as a lifelong fan of Star Trek and someone who respects Tarantino’s films well enough, I’m not against this development, nor fundamentally against the idea of a more adult Trek. The movies have been heading in that direction anyway. It’s just still really hard for me to imagine Tarantino’s trademark style grafted onto the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Like, can I picture Kirk and Spock cursing a blue streak while blood fountains out of the decapitated head of an enemy alien? Can I? At least Dr. McCoy would finally get to speak his mind.

Comicbook.com points out that when Tarantino has talked about his interest in directing Trek in the past, he’s cited the Next Generation episode “Yesterday’s Enterprise” as “one of the best episodes of Star Trek ever written.” In “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” the crew encounters a temporal rift that throws them into a timeline where the Klingon Empire and the Federation are locked in a brutal war, which Tarantino calls “the bloodiest war imaginable in the history of any universe,” and says that the episode “could bear a two hour treatment.”

While it’s unknown if his current pitch has anything to do with “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” I’m kind of a glutton for Star Trek stories that mess with time, so this wouldn’t be the worst thread to follow. Regardless, it seems like any Tarantino Trek take is going to see a whole lot of blood.

(via Deadline, image: Wikimedia Commons/Paramount)

• Our new live-action Mulan, Liu Yifei, looks incredible in this Mulan-themed photoshoot to celebrate her casting. (via Colorwebmag) 
• Justice, for once: Michael Slager, the ex-cop who murdered Walter Scott in 2015 in South Carolina, was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Slager shot Scott in the back as he was running away, a slaughter caught on video. Scott’s brother thanked witness Feiden Santana, who filmed the shooting, for being brave enough to do so. (via ABC)
• For some reason, Kate Winslet keeps saying good things about Woody Allen. Quit while you are far behind, Kate. (via The Cut)
• Marvel announced an animated film called Secret Warriors that will feature not-so-secret faves like Ms. Marvel, Miss America, Squirrel Girl and Spider-Gwen. Wait, is it Christmas already?! (via Comicbook.com)
• Also looking, um, pretty good in a photo shoot is Jason Momoa in an Aquaman first look. Yeah, this is fine. This will do. (via EW)

It’s officially safe to go back into the water, seems like. What’d you see today, swimmers?

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Crews has filed a lawsuit against Venit, who is still working at his agency.

Shia’s Hauls Episode 67

Check out Richie’s latest unboxing Life Size Kid Gohan Statue!

The post Shia’s Hauls Episode 67-Life Size Kid Gohan Statue appeared first on The Nerd Element.

Danny Masterson, currently under investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department for raping four women, has been fired from Netflix’s The Ranch. The investigation into Masterson has been public since at least March, and Netflix made the decision to renew The Ranch back in July, but they’ve finally acted after a Netflix exec told one of the victims that company decision-makers “don’t believe” the women who accused Masterson.

“As a result of ongoing discussions,” Netflix said in a statement, “Netflix and the producers have written Danny Masterson out of The Ranch. [Monday] was his last day on the show, and production will resume in early 2018 without him.”

Yesterday, we reported that Netflix had yet again come under fire for their hypocrisy regarding Masterson. Although the company quickly suspended Kevin Spacey when allegations of his sexual misconduct came out, and later fired him from House of Cards and cancelled the release of his movie Gore, they did not move so quickly with Masterson. They didn’t even suspend him pending the LAPD investigation. Instead, they kept right on on shooting, issuing a statement that they were “aware of the allegations and the subsequent investigation, and will respond if developments occur.”

And then, on Sunday, a Netflix executive (who is not directly involved with The Ranch) told one of the victims that Netflix execs simply “don’t believe” the four women whom Masterson allegedly assaulted. Shortly after this story broke, Netflix made their announced that Masterson has been “written out.”

Masterson will still appear in the second half of Season Two, which premieres on December 15. The Hollywood Reporter also said that he “could return for parts of the previously announced third season as the streaming giant writes him out.” So this isn’t so much a firing or a definitive statement as it is a “fine, I guess women are maybe people.”

The Ranch showrunners are Don Reo and Jim Patterson, who must really know how to pick ’em. They previously served as executive producers on Two and a Half Men, where Charlie Sheen famously had to be written out and replaced with Ashton Kutcher in 2011 when he made a series of offensive and incendiary comments. Notably, he was not written out or fired in 2009, when he assaulted and threatened the life of his wife, Brooke Mueller.

I’m sensing a pattern …

As we’ve said many times, this is a systemic problem—one that Netflix clearly hasn’t worked out a systemic (or even systematic) solution for dealing with. But writing Masterson out is a positive step forward.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter; image via Shutterstock)

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